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def elapsed_time(seconds, suffixes=['y','w','d','h','m','s'], add_s=False, separator=' '):
"""
Takes an amount of seconds and turns it into a human-readable amount of time.
"""
# the formatted time string to be returned
time = []

# the pieces of time to iterate over (days, hours, minutes, etc)
# - the first piece in each tuple is the suffix (d, h, w)
# - the second piece is the length in seconds (a day is 60s * 60m * 24h)
parts = [(suffixes[0], 60 * 60 * 24 * 7 * 52),
(suffixes[1], 60 * 60 * 24 * 7),
(suffixes[2], 60 * 60 * 24),
(suffixes[3], 60 * 60),
(suffixes[4], 60),
(suffixes[5], 1)]

# for each time piece, grab the value and remaining seconds, and add it to
# the time string
for suffix, length in parts:
value = seconds / length
if value > 0:
seconds = seconds % length
time.append('%s%s' % (str(value),
(suffix, (suffix, suffix + 's')[value > 1])[add_s]))
if seconds < 1:
break

return separator.join(time)

if __name__ == '__main__':
# 2 years, 1 week, 6 days, 2 hours, 59 minutes, 23 seconds
# 2y 1w 6d 2h 59m 23s
seconds = (60 * 60 * 24 * 7 * 52 * 2) + (60 * 60 * 24 * 7 * 1) + (60 * 60 * 24 * 6) + (60 * 60 * 2) + (60 * 59) + (1 * 23)
print elapsed_time(seconds)
print elapsed_time(seconds, [' year',' week',' day',' hour',' minute',' second'])
print elapsed_time(seconds, [' year',' week',' day',' hour',' minute',' second'], add_s=True)
print elapsed_time(seconds, [' year',' week',' day',' hour',' minute',' second'], add_s=True, separator=', ')

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