From the docs:

"To get the current date and time, just call moment() with no parameters.

var now = moment();

This is essentially the same as calling moment(new Date()).

Note: From version 2.14.0, moment([]) and moment({}) also return now. They used to default to start-of-today before 2.14.0, but that was arbitrary so it was changed."

I have tried both

moment().fromNow()

and also

moment(new Date()).fromNow() 

and a lot of other options. Upon page refresh, the time always displays 'a few seconds ago'.

Thanks for your help!

From the docs:

"To get the current date and time, just call moment() with no parameters.

var now = moment();

This is essentially the same as calling moment(new Date()).

Note: From version 2.14.0, moment([]) and moment({}) also return now. They used to default to start-of-today before 2.14.0, but that was arbitrary so it was changed."

I have tried both

moment().fromNow()

and also

moment(new Date()).fromNow() 

and a lot of other options. Upon page refresh, the time always displays 'a few seconds ago'.

Thanks for your help!

• javascript
• momentjs

• sorry for the lousy formatting – mkhira2 Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 1:37
• can you show some code where you use these mands, how you consume the data, and how you are showing it on the page? – Claies Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 1:45
• This is how I'm calling it in my code: <div className='runDate'>{moment(new Date()).fromNow()}</div> – mkhira2 Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 1:46
• please edit the question; don't put code in ments. – Claies Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 1:47
• also, what are you expecting as an output? you are asking it to get the current date and time, and calculate how long the current date and time is from the current date and time, they will always only be a second (the time for both calls to be made) apart. – Claies Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 1:48

4 Answers 4

The fromNow method, pares a date you pass to moment() to the date and time it is now, when you call that method.

It will always return a few seconds ago if you pass nothing or new Date() to moment() because it will be paring it to moment's version of now (probably calling new Date() at some point). The difference between these two dates will always be equal or a few milliseconds difference.

If you are looking to display the time difference from a date, you need to pass the parison date into moment like so:

var date = '2016-04-09 02:57:00';

var diff = moment(date).fromNow(); // 'A year ago'

Sample outputs and similar parison methods can be found on the moment docs http://momentjs./docs/#/displaying/fromnow/

In order to get exactly how many seconds ago, you can do something like this.

function timeAgo(time) {
    moment.updateLocale('en', {
        relativeTime: {
            future: "in %s",
            past: "%s ago",
            s: number=>number + "s ago",
            ss: '%ds ago',
            m: "1m ago",
            mm: "%dm ago",
            h: "1h ago",
            hh: "%dh ago",
            d: "1d ago",
            dd: "%dd ago",
            M: "a month ago",
            MM: "%d months ago",
            y: "a year ago",
            yy: "%d years ago"
        }
    });

    let secondsElapsed = moment().diff(time, 'seconds');
    let dayStart = moment("2018-01-01").startOf('day').seconds(secondsElapsed);

    if (secondsElapsed > 300) {
        return moment(time).fromNow(true);
    } else if (secondsElapsed < 60) {
        return dayStart.format('s') + 's ago';
    } else {
        return dayStart.format('m:ss') + 'm ago';
    }
},

The result will be

2s ago

You are using moment(new Date()) which is going to return now and then calling fromNow(). So the time difference is always going to be 0 seconds (or a few milliseconds) so thats what is getting displayed.

You should pass in some date to moment like:

moment("12-25-1995", "MM-DD-YYYY"); 

And then call fromNow() on it so as to get time difference between that date and now.

Moment's duration's humanize function allows you to pass thresholds https://momentjs./docs/#/durations/humanize

By default you will get:

moment.duration(35 * 1000).humanize() // a few seconds

If you pass threshold for ss

moment.duration(35 * 1000).humanize({ss: 1}) // 35 seconds