Along the same lines, you could do something to the effect of
Update: After reading sulfericacid's response, I tested my algo. The issue was a typo ( popped up with use strict;), and I wasn't calling int. New code below.
#!/usr/bin/perl
# tested and verified
use strict;
my $then = time() - (86400 * 3);
my $min_s = 60;
my $hour_s = $min_s * 60;
my $day_s = $hour_s * 24;
my $elapsed = time() - $then;
my $output;
my $days = int( $elapsed / $day_s );
$elapsed -= $days * $day_s;
$output = "$days days " if $days;
my $hours = int ( $elapsed / $hour_s );
$elapsed -= $hours * $hour_s;
$output .= "$hours hours " if $hours;
my $mins = int ( $elapsed / $min_s );
$elapsed -= $mins * $min_s;
$output .= "$mins minutes " if $mins;
$output .= "$elapsed seconds" if $elapsed;
# so on and so forth;
print "$output ago\n";
use perl;
Everyone should spend some time pounding nails with their forehead for a while before they graduate to complicated stuff like hammers. - Dominus