[Resolved] Date fields from Events Manager are not interpreted as dates.

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[tammot]

* Tell us what you are trying to do?

I am trying to develop a view that holds all events (as from today and further in the future, only events that belong to a certain category), using the fields that are available in the Events Manager (hidden link where I am using the Pro version):

-- _event_start
-- _event_end
It seems that these fields are not interpreted as datetime fields (although in my PHPMyAdmin shows that they are datetime fields )

* Is there any documentation that you are following?

I have visited:
-- https://toolset.com/forums/topic/order-by-is-not-working-when-using-custom-field/
-- https://toolset.com/forums/topic/need-to-create-a-schedule-calendar/

At first I tried as code in the view:
<h3>[wpv-post-title]</h3>
<p>[wpv-post-field name='_event_start' format="l F j, Y"]</p>

This resulted in the following output on the screen:

Title of event
2018-07-04

In the second link above I then used the code in Reply #365125, but this did not work. I suspected that the code is not correct, see attachment. I rewrote the code to:

function date_format($atts){
$format = $atts["format"];
$date = $atts["date"];

return date($format, $date);
}
add_shortcode("date-format", "date_format");

and I added:
[date-format date="[wpv-post-field name='_event_end_date']" format="F j, Y"] to my view, but this gave me:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare date_format() in V:\power\wp-content\themes\understrap-child\functions.php on line 194

Line 194 says: }

--------------------------------------
Futhermore: I also wanted to filter on the date and show only events that take place today and in the futute, but filtering did not work either.

I really would like your advice on this.

Please visit hidden link to see what happens when I use

<h3>[wpv-post-title]</h3>
<p>[wpv-post-field name='_event_start' format="l F j, Y"]</p>
<p>[wpv-post-field name='_event_end' format="l F j, Y"]</p>
<p>[date-format date="[wpv-post-field name='_event_end']" format="F j, Y"]</p>

Of course for the example I left away the incorrect code in functions.php

Thanking you in advance,

Tammo ter Hark

[tammot]

I now see that I made an error in the support question:
After I added the code:

function date_format($atts){
$format = $atts["format"];
$date = $atts["date"];

return date($format, $date);
}
add_shortcode("date-format", "date_format");

to functions.php I added:

[date-format date="[wpv-post-field name='_event_end']" format="F j, Y"]

to my view, but this gave me:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare date_format() in V:\power\wp-content\themes\understrap-child\functions.php on line 194

Line 194 says:

}

This corresponds with line 6 in the above code.

[Minesh]

Hello. Thank you for contacting the Toolset support.

Well - could you please try to add the function as given under and try to resolve your issue:

function func_date_format($atts){
$format = $atts["format"];
$date = $atts["date"];
 
return date($format, $date);
}
add_shortcode("date-format", "func_date_format");

[tammot]

Hi Minesh,

thanks for the swift reply. What you suggested did make a difference, but it is not right yet.

I pasted your code into functions.php:

function func_date_format($atts){
    $format = $atts["format"];
    $date = $atts["date"];

    return date($format, $date);
}

add_shortcode("date-format", "func_date_format");

and I changed the views code to:

<h3>[wpv-post-title]</h3>
<p>[wpv-post-field name='_event_start' format="l j F Y"]</p>
<p>[wpv-post-field name='_event_end' format="l j F Y"]</p>
<p>[date-format date="[wpv-post-field name='_event_end']" format="l j F Y"]</p>

I also tried

<p>[date-format wpv-post-field name='_event_end' format="l j F Y"]</p>

on the last line, but this gave no difference.

On the fontside, this resulted in:
POWER-film ‘The Trip to Spain’
2018-07-04 12:00:00

2018-07-04 14:00:00

Thursday 1 January 1970

As you will be able to see at:
hidden link

So: thank you, but I still hope for your advice in perfecting this.

Tammo

[Minesh]

could you please share access details.

*** Please make a FULL BACKUP of your database and website.***
I would also eventually need to request temporary access (WP-Admin and FTP) to your site. Preferably to a test site where the problem has been replicated if possible in order to be of better help and check if some configurations might need to be changed.

I would additionally need your permission to de- and re-activate Plugins and the Theme, and to change configurations on the site. This is also a reason the backup is really important. If you agree to this, please use the form fields I have enabled below to provide temporary access details (wp-admin and FTP).

I have set the next reply to private which means only you and I have access to it.

[tammot]

Maybe the image gives a clue?

[Minesh]

could you please share access details.

I have set the next reply to private which means only you and I have access to it.

[tammot]

access details - removed

I have a good backup of the site.

[tammot]

I cannot see that the above reply is private. Please set it to private.

Thank you!

[Minesh]

I've added following shortcode to your current theme's functions.php file and adjusted the code as well to display the correct date.

I also shared two different shortcodes to display both of your date in simple as well as in dutch text as well.

/* for simple date */ 
function func_date_format($atts){
    $format = $atts["format"];
    $date = $atts["date"];
	return date($format, strtotime($date));
}
add_shortcode("date-format", "func_date_format");

/* to display date with dutch language */
function func_date_format_in_dutch($atts){
    $format = $atts["format"];
    $date = $atts["date"];
	setlocale(LC_TIME, "de_DE");
    return strftime("%A %e %B %Y",strtotime($date));
    
}
add_shortcode("date-format-in-dutch", "func_date_format_in_dutch");

Additionally the <strog> format attribute with shortcode [wpv-post-field] is NOT supported so I removed it and your view's code looks like as given under:

<h3>[wpv-post-title]</h3>
<p>[wpv-post-field name='_event_start']</p>
<p>[wpv-post-field name='_event_end']</p>
<p>Simple Date: [date-format date="[wpv-post-field name='_event_end']" format="l j F Y"]</p>
<p>In Dutch: [date-format-in-dutch  date="[wpv-post-field name='_event_end']" format="l j F Y"]</p>

Could you please confirm it works at your end as well: hidden link

Please let me know your feedaback 🙂

[tammot]

Thank you, this was the right solution.

Just a small thing (which I can solve easily myself): Dutch is the language in the Netherlands, so the language code is nl-NL. de_DE is for German. But I know this is sometimes confusing for people outside Europe..

[tammot]

Just to make this entry more complete:

I saw on my local installation (Xampp on Windows) that this solution does not work, due to a different way of working with locale.

Changing the code in function.php to

function func_date_format_NL($atts){
    $format = $atts["format"];
    $date = $atts["date"];
	  setlocale(LC_ALL, 'NL-nl');
    return strftime("%A %#d %B %Y %H:%M",strtotime($date));  
}

made it work both on Windows as well as on Linux (live server). Notice the substitution of %e by %#d.

Documented here:
hidden link

[tammot]

Thank you very much! This was of great help!

Tammo