How to convert seconds to human readable time

Create a shell script to convert seconds to human-readable time. I have reused part of an old shell script used to pretty-print system uptime to built it, as this code proved to be useful on several occasions.

#!/bin/bash
# Convert seconds to human readable time

# reusable function to pretty print time 
function pretty_time() {
  # calculate seconds for each time period
  seconds_in_year=$(  echo "(365.2425  * 24 * 60 * 60)/1" | bc)
  seconds_in_month=$( echo "(30.436875 * 24 * 60 * 60)/1" | bc)
  seconds_in_day=$(   echo "(            24 * 60 * 60)/1" | bc)
  seconds_in_hour=$(  echo "(                 60 * 60)/1" | bc)
  seconds_in_minute=60

  seconds_param="$1"

  time_string=""

  # take care of years
  if [ "$seconds_param" -ge "$seconds_in_year" ]; then
    years=$(expr $seconds_param \/ $seconds_in_year)
    seconds_param=$(expr $seconds_param - $years \* $seconds_in_year)
    if [ "$years" -gt "1" ]; then
      time_string="$years years"
    elif [ "$years" -eq "1" ]; then
      time_string="$years year"
    fi
  fi
  # take care of months
  if [ "$seconds_param" -ge "$seconds_in_month" ]; then
    months=$(expr $seconds_param \/ $seconds_in_month)
    seconds_param=$(expr $seconds_param - $months \* $seconds_in_month)
    if [ "$months" -gt "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $months months"
    elif [ "$months" -eq "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $months month"
    fi
  fi

  # take care of days
  if [ "$seconds_param" -ge "$seconds_in_day" ]; then
    days=$(expr $seconds_param \/ $seconds_in_day)
    seconds_param=$(expr $seconds_param - $days \* $seconds_in_day)
    if [ "$days" -gt "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $days days"
    elif [ "$days" -eq "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $days day"
    fi
  fi
  
  # take care of hours
  if [ "$seconds_param" -ge "$seconds_in_hour" ]; then
    hours=$(expr $seconds_param \/ $seconds_in_hour)
    seconds_param=$(expr $seconds_param - $hours \* $seconds_in_hour)
    if [ "$hours" -gt "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $hours hours"
    elif [ "$hours" -eq "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $hours hour"
    fi
  fi
  
  # take care of minutes
  if [ "$seconds_param" -ge "$seconds_in_minute" ]; then
    minutes=$(expr $seconds_param \/ $seconds_in_minute)
    seconds_param=$(expr $seconds_param - $minutes \* $seconds_in_minute)
    if [ "$minutes" -gt "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $minutes minutes"
    elif [ "$minutes" -eq "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $minutes minute"
    fi
  fi
  
  # take care of seconds
  seconds=$seconds_param
  if [ "$seconds" -gt "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $seconds seconds"
  elif [ "$seconds" -eq "1" ]; then
      time_string="$time_string $seconds second"
  fi
  
  echo "$time_string" | sed "s/^ //"
}
  
if [ "$#" -lt "1" ]; then
  echo "Please execute shell script with single argument or multiple arguments:"
  echo "  $ ${0} 44 86400 26900 99000 189020 4360520 87232200"
else
  for seconds in "$@"; do
    case $seconds in
      ""|0|*[!0-9]*) 
         printf "%18s ! %s\n" "${seconds}" "invalid number of seconds" ;;
      *) 
         printf "%10s seconds = %s\n" "${seconds}" "$(pretty_time $seconds)" ;;
    esac
  done
fi

Sample output inside the terminal.

~$ bash pretty_secs.sh

Please execute shell script with single argument or multiple arguments:
  $ pretty_secs.sh 44 86400 26900 99000 189020 4360520 87232200

~$ bash pretty_secs.sh 44 86400 x1 26900 99000 2e 189020 - 4360520 87232201

44 seconds = 44 seconds
     86400 seconds = 1 day
                x1 ! invalid number of seconds
     26900 seconds = 7 hours 28 minutes 20 seconds
     99000 seconds = 1 day 3 hours 30 minutes
                2e ! invalid number of seconds
    189020 seconds = 2 days 4 hours 30 minutes 20 seconds
                 - ! invalid number of seconds
   4360520 seconds = 1 month 20 days 46 minutes 14 seconds
  87232201 seconds = 2 years 9 months 5 days 5 hours 9 minutes 43 seconds