Given the examples you gave, I wrote the following Tcl procedure that do what you want:
proc pretty_pg_date {pg_date} {
set pgtime [clock scan $pg_date]
set now [ns_time]
set diff [expr $now - $pgtime]
if {$diff < 0} {
set diff [expr abs($diff)]
set neighbor Tomorrow
set neighbor_day -86400
} else {
set neighbor Yesterday
set neighbor_day 86400
}
# 31536000 seconds in a 365-day year
if {$diff > 31536000} {
return [ns_fmttime $pgtime "%A, %b %e, %Y"]
}
set pg_day_of_year [ns_fmttime $pgtime %j]
set now_day_of_year [ns_fmttime $now %j]
if {[string compare $pg_day_of_year $now_day_of_year] == 0} {
return "Today at [string trimleft [ns_fmttime $pgtime %I:%M%p] 0]"
}
set neighbor_day_of_year [ns_fmttime [expr $pgtime + $neighbor_day] %j]
if {[string compare $now_day_of_year $neighbor_day_of_year] == 0} {
return "$neighbor at [string trimleft [ns_fmttime $pgtime %I:%M%p] 0]"
}
switch -- [ns_fmttime $pgtime %d] {
01 -
21 -
31 { set suffix st }
02 -
22 { set suffix nd }
03 { set suffix rd }
default { set suffix th }
}
return [ns_fmttime $pgtime "%A, %b %e"]$suffix
}
This will only work on AOLserver 3.0 (since AOLserver 2.3 is Tcl 7.4-based, and the clock scan command wasn't added until Tcl 7.6). It also only works on dates between the start of the epoch, up through integer overflow (ie January 1, 1970 — sometime in August(?) of 2038).
