Date Formats

Hi All,

I would prefer to have a date that is formated like 'February 2, 2010' which I think should be the formated with the following string 'F d, Y' This however generates a general system error like so.

Code:

---

Fatal error: Uncaught exception Exception with message Invalid date format "F d Y" thrown in C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\system\libraries\Date.php on line 187

#0 C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\system\libraries\Widget.php(540): Date->getRegexp('F d Y')
#1 C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\system\modules\backend\TextField.php(105): Widget->validator('January 15 2010')
#2 C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\system\libraries\Widget.php(420): TextField->validator('January 15 2010')
#3 C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\system\modules\backend\DataContainer.php(251): Widget->validate()
#4 C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\system\drivers\DC_Table.php(1473): DataContainer->row()
#5 C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\system\modules\backend\Backend.php(208): DC_Table->edit()
#6 C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\typolight\main.php(99): Backend->getBackendModule('news')
#7 C:\xampp\htdocs\abmac-tl\typolight\main.php(294): Main->run()
#8 {main}

---

My config is
$GLOBALS['TL_CONFIG']['dateFormat'] = 'F d, Y';
$GLOBALS['TL_CONFIG']['datimFormat'] = 'F d, Y';

Whats the correct formating string?

Yes! We ran into the same issue over here a couple of weeks ago on a site we were doing.

I did find this post on the old forums: http://www.typolight.org/forum/message/1559.html. Unfortunately there was no explanation or solution given, just a bunch of people basically acknowledging that the problem exists. :)

The best I can gather is that the global date format you define in settings has to be numeric only -- not sure what the technical reasons are and would welcome any insight.

Unfortunately I don't have access to the code (it was on a friend's Dev server), but I THINK we solved it by going into the news template and specifying the date like the following:

Code:

---

<?php echo date("F j, Y", $this->time); ?>

---

In our case we used "j" because that one doesn't add the leading 0 to single-digit days.

Hey that worked beautifully!

So restated you can override the system date format with a custom format.

Copy and edit the appropriate News template and swapped out
the date code

Code:

---

<?php  echo $this->date;  ?>

---

with

Code:

---

<?php echo date("F j, Y", $this->time); ?>

---

Correct -- that will work, specifically for news items. (Common tripping point we ran into -- $this->date is what news uses by default to show date & time. We tried it with that first, but it broke -- I guess because of how it's formatted. So we tried $this->time instead, and that did the trick).

Events have different variables, and I don't know about anything else.

But when in doubt, you can drop this into any template:

Code:

---

<?php echo '<pre>'; $this->showTemplateVars(); echo '</pre>'; ?>

---

And when you refresh it will show you all the available template variables, so a few minutes of trial and error will get you the one you need.

Thats good to know! Thanks again.

TYPOlight prefers numeric date formats for the backend, which are set in System > Settings. From Layout > Site structure, you can define frontend date, time, and date + time formatting by editing your website root. This is one of many reasons why it's good to use a website root and place all pages beneath it.

Thanks, Ben. That's good to know. I've seen this recommended twice now, and will definitely try in the future.