2 q's: Date class & Get array of params from Request class

[mark]

1. Is there a Date object in OJS? I'm doing an extension and need to store date information (2008-02-30) and do date calculations (e.g., new_date = date + 30; dayOfWeek = $date->dayOfWeek(); $date->getMonth(), etc). If not, can anyone recommend a well designed open source Date class for php?

2. I have a series of checkboxes that the user can click
<input type="checkbox" name="id" value="100">
<input type="checkbox" name="id" value="102">
<input type="checkbox" name="id" value="103">

Is there a routine that returns an array of the values if the user checks multiple boxes? Request::getUserVar("id") only returns a string.

[mark]

Answer to 1:
http://apptools.com/phptools/forms/forms3.php
Short answer is that the HTML checkbox name attribute needs to end with [] e.g., name="id[]"
Code is running now.

The Date class is more difficult... I'm not sure if what've found on-line is of the quality of the OJS code.

[asmecher]

Hi Mark,

We use Unix-style timestamps (i.e. the number of seconds since the Unix epoch), which is what you'll get with PKP's time() and strtotime() functions. They can be manipulated with relative ease and formatted using the PHP strftime function and Smarty date_format modifier. Math on these numbers is as simple as:

$currentTime = time();
$secondsPerDay = 60 * 60 * 24;
$currentTimePlusThirtyDays = $currentTime + ($secondsPerDay * 30);

The strftime function (see http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/function.strftime.php) will get you the day of the week etc.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[mark]

Is there rhyme or reason why no date class has been created in ~/classes/core/?
It seems like a common enough object that it would be a shoo-in for a Model Class. Although maybe in OJS, dates manipulation isn't extensive?

[asmecher]

Hi Mark,

That's right -- we haven't had much need for it. OCS does a little more date manipulation than OJS, but still, not enough that we've gone ahead and added a date class.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team