I'm surprised that everyone is computing 60*60*24*365 instead of computing the values in an order that makes this calculation unnecessary [ update: except for the above by Dr. Mu which was entered while I typed this one :) ]. 

#!/usr/bin/perl -wl
use strict;

print join "\n", map { secs2str( $_ ) } <DATA>;
exit( 0 );

{
    my( @div, @unit );
    BEGIN {
        @div= ( 60, 60, 24, 365 );
        @unit= qw( second minute hour day year );
    }
    sub secs2str {
        my( $left )= @_;
        my @val= (  map( {
            my $unit= $left;
            $left= int( $left / $_ );
            $unit -= $left * $_;
        } @div ),  $left  );
        @val= map {
            0 == $val[$_] ? ()
                : "$val[$_] $unit[$_]"
                  . ( 1 == $val[$_] ? "" : "s" )
        } reverse 0..$#val;
        return  0==@val ? "now"
                    : 1==@val ? $val[0]
                        : 2==@val ? join( " and ", @val )
                            : join ", ", @val[0..$#val-1],
                                         "and $val[-1]";
    }
}
__END__
0
1
10
100
1020
10000.5
100840
1000900
10000000
100000020.5
1000000000

[download]
prints 
now
1 second
10 seconds
1 minute and 40 seconds
17 minutes
2 hours, 46 minutes, and 40.5 seconds
1 day, 4 hours, and 40 seconds
11 days, 14 hours, 1 minute, and 40 seconds
115 days, 17 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds
3 years, 62 days, 9 hours, 47 minutes, and 0.5 seconds
31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds

[download]
I'd put fractions other than 0.5 in but then I'd have to include logic to remember number of digits after the decimal place and use that to trim the output (or just show ugly output). (:

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

In reply to (tye)Re: Converting Seconds to Nice Format by tye
in thread Converting Seconds to Nice Format by Segfault

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