>  Can Ruby do something like this?
>  
>  irb(main):001:0> start = Time.now
>  => Thu Nov 05 01:02:54 -0800 2009
>  
>  irb(main):002:0> Time.now - start
>  => 25.239
>  
>  irb(main):003:0> (Time.now - start).duration
>  => "25 seconds"
>  and similarly, report
>  
>  23 minutes and 35 seconds
>  1 hour and 33 minutes
>  2 days and 3 hours
>  (either report the whole duration, up to how many seconds, or report up
>  to 2 numbers and units (if day and hour is reported, then no need to
>  tell how many minutes)


You can try something like below (change with conditional statements to fit your requirement
s of upto 2 numbers):

class Time
  def duration
    Time.now - self
  end
  def duration_string
    difference = duration
    days = (difference/(3600*24)).to_i
    hours = ((difference%(3600*24))/3600).to_i

    mins = ((difference%(3600))/60).to_i

    secs = (difference%60).to_i
    "#{days} days, #{hours} hours, #{mins} minutes and #{secs} seconds"
  end
end

start = Time.new
sleep(5)
puts start.duration_string






 		 	   		  
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