ewancroft.uk
my pkgs monorepo
1/**
2 * Formats a date string into a relative, human-readable time.
3 * Uses the user's system locale where possible, with a fallback to en-GB.
4 */
5export function formatRelativeTime(dateString: string): string {
6 const date = new Date(dateString);
7 const now = new Date();
8 const diffMs = now.getTime() - date.getTime();
9 const diffMins = Math.floor(diffMs / 60000);
10 const diffHours = Math.floor(diffMins / 60);
11 const diffDays = Math.floor(diffHours / 24);
12
13 if (diffMins < 1) return 'just now';
14 if (diffMins < 60) return `${diffMins}m ago`;
15 if (diffHours < 24) return `${diffHours}h ago`;
16 if (diffDays < 7) return `${diffDays}d ago`;
17
18 const userLocale = typeof navigator !== 'undefined' ? navigator.language : 'en-GB';
19
20 return date.toLocaleDateString(userLocale, {
21 day: 'numeric',
22 month: 'short',
23 year: date.getFullYear() !== now.getFullYear() ? 'numeric' : undefined
24 });
25}