Date Format for Spry data set sort

Question

Hi
Just feeling my way through the use of Spry Datasets for the
first time and have a couple of issues hopefully someone with more
knowledge of it than me know the answer to.
I had an issue with my Spry Dataset initially that it would
not work in ie7 but was OK in FF3.
After some mucking round I realised the error I was getting -
albeit obscure in IE was telling me it was a date format issue in
my data set.
The db data I am playing with here is fairly simple: I have a
couple of text fields, an integer field that contains the
unixtimestamp of the entry (its a simple diary application) and a
formal date field that holds the same date in mysql's date format.
When I display the date in the dataset I do so in the format
"23rd May 2009" (as an example)- I code this using phps date
function in my xml query.
I had set this field to date format in the Spry dataset
conditions but IE seems to barf on this- I can change it to
textstring but then my sort is done on Alpha/Numeric sort of the
first character in the date field which is rubbish.
I only display the date in this format and one of the other
text fields in my dataset- the unixdate is for programmatic
purposes not general display so I cannot sort on this field if its
invisible. How can I acheive a date based sort with this set up- or
what date formats does Spry code prefer for date sorts? (My client
wants the date to show as I have explained). Many thanks. I have a
second query which I will post separately!
Kenny

Answer 1

"Tanushiheadbash" <[email protected]> wrote
in message
news:gqa70o$iat$[email protected]..
> I think I follow what you are saying and in fact I think
its what I
> already
> have. I have set the sort order to use the unixtime when
the page
> initially
> loads and thats OK.
I am sorry, but you aren't following my explanation. English
isn't my mother
tongue, and I am not able to explain it any better.
> However what I need to be able to do is to have the
AJAX/Javascript sort
> (done in this case with Spry- ) to sort on the date when
the column header
> is
> clicked. The problem I have is the date format in this
visible column is
> in
> DDth Month YYYY format and Spry does not recocnise this
as a date format-
> it
> wants it as a string ( or ie gives an error). Maybe its
not possible what
> I am
> trying to do- just thought there might be a clever way
to implement this.
You can take a look at this page:
http://visual.unipv.it/tmt_calendar/admin/reports/events.cfm
Even if all the dates here are incidentally using the
yyyy-mm-dd format, the
dataset display the date from the "start_date_formatted"
field:
<td><a href="javascript:"
onclick="showUpdate('{event_id}')">{start_date_formatted}</a></td>
But uses another field to sort the table:
<th scope="col" spry:sort="start_date">Start
date</th>
You can have the same date, using two different formats,
inside two,
separated dataset fields. One is used for display, the other
one is used for
sort.
You may try to read again my previous explanations, look at
the code in the
page above and see if you get the idea.
Massimo Foti, web-programmer for hire
Tools for ColdFusion, JavaScript and Dreamweaver:
http://www.massimocorner.com