这可能有点俗气，但如果你决心使用Java 8的Java .time来实现这一点，这是一个很好的解决方案:

import java.time.Duration;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatterBuilder;
import java.time.temporal.ChronoField;
import java.time.temporal.Temporal;
import java.time.temporal.TemporalAccessor;
import java.time.temporal.TemporalField;
import java.time.temporal.UnsupportedTemporalTypeException;

public class TemporalDuration implements TemporalAccessor {
    private static final Temporal BASE_TEMPORAL = LocalDateTime.of(0, 1, 1, 0, 0);

    private final Duration duration;
    private final Temporal temporal;

    public TemporalDuration(Duration duration) {
        this.duration = duration;
        this.temporal = duration.addTo(BASE_TEMPORAL);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isSupported(TemporalField field) {
        if(!temporal.isSupported(field)) return false;
        long value = temporal.getLong(field)-BASE_TEMPORAL.getLong(field);
        return value!=0L;
    }

    @Override
    public long getLong(TemporalField field) {
        if(!isSupported(field)) throw new UnsupportedTemporalTypeException(new StringBuilder().append(field.toString()).toString());
        return temporal.getLong(field)-BASE_TEMPORAL.getLong(field);
    }

    public Duration getDuration() {
        return duration;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return dtf.format(this);
    }

    private static final DateTimeFormatter dtf = new DateTimeFormatterBuilder()
            .optionalStart()//second
            .optionalStart()//minute
            .optionalStart()//hour
            .optionalStart()//day
            .optionalStart()//month
            .optionalStart()//year
            .appendValue(ChronoField.YEAR).appendLiteral(" Years ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.MONTH_OF_YEAR).appendLiteral(" Months ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.DAY_OF_MONTH).appendLiteral(" Days ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.HOUR_OF_DAY).appendLiteral(" Hours ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.MINUTE_OF_HOUR).appendLiteral(" Minutes ").optionalEnd()
            .appendValue(ChronoField.SECOND_OF_MINUTE).appendLiteral(" Seconds").optionalEnd()
            .toFormatter();

}

long duration = 4 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss.SSS", Locale.getDefault());
log.info("Duration: " + sdf.format(new Date(duration - TimeZone.getDefault().getRawOffset())));

这个答案只使用Duration方法，适用于Java 8:

public static String format(Duration d) {
    long days = d.toDays();
    d = d.minusDays(days);
    long hours = d.toHours();
    d = d.minusHours(hours);
    long minutes = d.toMinutes();
    d = d.minusMinutes(minutes);
    long seconds = d.getSeconds() ;
    return 
            (days ==  0?"":days+" days,")+ 
            (hours == 0?"":hours+" hours,")+ 
            (minutes ==  0?"":minutes+" minutes,")+ 
            (seconds == 0?"":seconds+" seconds,");
}

在scala中，不需要库:

def prettyDuration(str:List[String],seconds:Long):List[String]={
  seconds match {
    case t if t < 60 => str:::List(s"${t} seconds")
    case t if (t >= 60 && t< 3600 ) => List(s"${t / 60} minutes"):::prettyDuration(str, t%60)
    case t if (t >= 3600 && t< 3600*24 ) => List(s"${t / 3600} hours"):::prettyDuration(str, t%3600)
    case t if (t>= 3600*24 ) => List(s"${t / (3600*24)} days"):::prettyDuration(str, t%(3600*24))
  }
}
val dur = prettyDuration(List.empty[String], 12345).mkString("")

在Scala中，构建YourBestBet的解决方案，但简化了:

def prettyDuration(seconds: Long): List[String] = seconds match {
  case t if t < 60      => List(s"${t} seconds")
  case t if t < 3600    => s"${t / 60} minutes" :: prettyDuration(t % 60)
  case t if t < 3600*24 => s"${t / 3600} hours" :: prettyDuration(t % 3600)
  case t                => s"${t / (3600*24)} days" :: prettyDuration(t % (3600*24))
}

val dur = prettyDuration(12345).mkString(", ") // => 3 hours, 25 minutes, 45 seconds

我使用Apache common的DurationFormatUtils，就像这样:

DurationFormatUtils.formatDuration(millis, "**H:mm:ss**", true);