Date & Time Not Displaying On Forum.Php & Read.Php Page

[surfmad74 0]

Hi I've created the Message Board site as per the book but for some reason the Date & Time on both the Forum.php and read.php page aren't displaying.

 

I've tried the supplied code as well as my own and neither work so I'm assuming it might be a php setting or MySQL setting?

 

I've run the site using XAMPP on my MacOSX and also on my rented server.

 

I don't know if it makes any difference but the php.ini file timezone is set to...

 

date.timezone = "Europe/London"

 

Can you help please, many thanks

 

Grant

[HartleySan 826]

I'd make a separate sample script to just test some date functions and make sure they're working all right.

Try the following in XAMPP and confirm whether date info is properly displayed or not:

 

<?php

 echo date('r') . '<br>';

 print_r(getdate());

?>

 

Please let us know what you find.

Thanks.

[surfmad74 0]

HartleySan.... that worked!

 

I received

 

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:43:06 +0100Array

( [seconds] => 6 [minutes] => 43 [hours] => 13 [mday] => 20 [wday] => 5 [mon] => 4 [year] => 2012 [yday] => 110 [weekday] => Friday [month] => April [0] => 1334925786 )

 

So what can II try next?

 

thanks for your help!!!

[HartleySan 826]

Could you please post what you suspect to be the relevant (troublemaking) code?

Thanks.

[surfmad74 0]

In the database the date is stored like so...

posted_on

2012-04-18 18:29:15

 

Below is the code from the page 'forum.php'

<?php # Script 15.4 - forum.php
// This page shows the threads in a forum.
include ('includes/header.html');
// Retrieve all the messages in this forum...
// If the user is logged in and has chosen a time zone,
// use that to convert the dates and times:
if (isset($_SESSION['user_tz'])) {
$first = "CONVERT_TZ(p.posted_on, 'UTC', '{$_SESSION['user_tz']}')";
$last = "CONVERT_TZ(p.posted_on, 'UTC', '{$_SESSION['user_tz']}')";
} else {
$first = 'p.posted_on';
$last = 'p.posted_on';
}
// The query for retrieving all the threads in this forum, along with the original user,
// when the thread was first posted, when it was last replied to, and how many replies it's had:
$q = "SELECT t.thread_id, t.subject, username, COUNT(post_id) - 1 AS responses, MAX(DATE_FORMAT($last, '%e-%b-%y %l:%i %p')) AS last, MIN(DATE_FORMAT($first, '%e-%b-%y %l:%i %p')) AS first FROM threads AS t INNER JOIN posts AS p USING (thread_id) INNER JOIN users AS u ON t.user_id = u.user_id WHERE t.lang_id = {$_SESSION['lid']} GROUP BY (p.thread_id) ORDER BY last DESC";
$r = mysqli_query($dbc, $q);
if (mysqli_num_rows($r) > 0) {
// Create a table:
echo '<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="2" align="center">
 <tr>
  <td align="left" width="50%"><em>' . $words['subject'] . '</em>:</td>
  <td align="left" width="20%"><em>' . $words['posted_by'] . '</em>:</td>
  <td align="center" width="10%"><em>' . $words['posted_on'] . '</em>:</td>
  <td align="center" width="10%"><em>' . $words['replies'] . '</em>:</td>
  <td align="center" width="10%"><em>' . $words['latest_reply'] . '</em>:</td>
 </tr>';
// Fetch each thread:
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($r, MYSQLI_ASSOC)) {

 echo '<tr>
<td align="left"><a href="read.php?tid=' . $row['thread_id'] . '">' . $row['subject'] . '</a></td>
<td align="left">' . $row['username'] . '</td>
<td align="center">' . $row['first'] . '</td>
<td align="center">' . $row['responses'] . '</td>
<td align="center">' . $row['last'] . '</td>
  </tr>';

}

echo '</table>'; // Complete the table.

} else {
echo '<p>There are currently no messages in this forum.</p>';
}
// Include the HTML footer file:
include ('includes/footer.html');
?>

[HartleySan 826]

I'm not that familiar with the message board code in the book (sorry), but am I to assume that all the posts, etc. display properly aside from the dates and times not displaying?

If that's the case, then most likely there is some mismatch between the date and time stored in the DB and what you're requesting, or there's some syntax error with the DATE_FORMAT function in the DB query.

 

Either way, I would recommend going into phpMyAdmin in XAMPP and from the "SQL" tab of the DB page, and trying to execute simple queries using the DATE_FORMAT function and static values.

See if you can't diagnose the problem like that.

 

After you do that, please let us know what you find.

I'm honestly still not 100% sure what the exact problem is, so it's hard to help.

[Edward 108]

In order to use the function CONVERT_TZ(), the list of time zones must already be stored in MySQL, which may or may not be the case for your installation. So if the times zones are not installed the function will return a NULL value, that's why may be your are not receiving any output.

[surfmad74 0]

So if I add to the php.ini file the other timezones that should work?

 

Like so?

date.timezone = "Europe/London"

date.timezone = "America/New_York"

etc

[Larry 428]

No, you need to install the list of timezones in MySQL. See Chapter 14 (I think) of the book.

[sandari 1]

If you go to:

 

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/time-zone-support.html

 

you will find full instructions on loading time zones into MySQL