Pastable version of Beautify JS Date to how recently the event occured.

<pre class='prettyprint' language='javascript'>/***
* Beautify date to how recent the event occurred compared to now.
* Some examples:  1 second, 4 hours, 10 days, 1 year.
*	Example:
*   var oneFiftyMin = new Date(new Date().getTime() - 60000 * 150);
*   alert(oneFiftyMin.when()); // will display &quot;2 hours&quot;
*
*  Handy for things like &quot;Item posted &quot; + someDate.when() + &quot; ago.&quot;
*/
Date.prototype.when = function() {

var diff = new Date().getTime() - this.getTime();
	var when; // our return value

//TODO:  what if the time is in the future? 
	//if (diff &lt; 0) throw new Error (&quot;Date is in future, check timezone?&quot;;

//one or more of these will be non-zero, but we only care about the biggest one (in scale of time)
  var secondsOld = Math.floor(diff / 1000);
  var minutesOld = Math.floor(diff / 60000);
  var hoursOld   = Math.floor(diff / 3600000);
  var daysOld    = Math.floor(diff / 86400000);
	var monthsOld  = Math.floor(diff / 2592000000);
	var yearsOld   = Math.floor(diff / (2592000000 * 12));  //your content is old!

//determine which value is non-zero and assign appropriate text
  if (yearsOld &gt; 0) {
		when = yearsOld + &quot; year&quot;;
  }
  else if (monthsOld &gt; 0) {
		when = monthsOld + &quot; month&quot;;
  }
  else if (daysOld &gt; 0) {
		when = daysOld + &quot; day&quot;;
  }
  else if (hoursOld &gt; 0) {
		when = hoursOld + &quot; hour&quot;;
  }
  else if (minutesOld &gt; 0) {
		when = minutesOld + &quot; minute&quot;;
  }
  else {
		when = Math.round(diff /1000) + &quot; second&quot;;
	}

//add plural if necessary
	return (0 == when.indexOf(&quot;1 &quot;)) ? when : when + &quot;s&quot;;
}</pre>
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Pastable version of Beautify JS Date to how recently the event occured.