Given a timestamp in the form '20050802033259' I want a function that gives an approximate relative time from now (as according to the system clock).

sub timediff($;$) {
    my $then = $_[0];
    
    my $now;
    if (defined $_[1]) {
       $now = $_[1];
    } else {
       # set $now from system clock
    }

    my $diff;

    # $diff = relative time between $now and $then

    return $diff;
}
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$diff should be something like '30 seconds ago', '4 years from now', 'last month', '4 hours from now', 'yesterday', '2 days ago', etc.

Is there a CPAN module out there that does it?

---

Solved: Ahhh CPAN. You've got to love it...

    sub timediff($) {
        use Time::Piece;
        use Time::Piece::MySQL;
        use Time::Duration;

        my $time = Time::Piece->from_mysql_timestamp( $_[0] );

        my $now = localtime;

        my $diff = ago ($now->epoch() - $time->epoch(), 1);

        return $diff;
    }
[download]

Any improvements on the above would be greatly appreciated.

-Andrew.