Is there a PHP coder in the house?

When it comes to coding...this is all I can do.



fi522298a5

Okay.. I'm struck. What is currently in the sidebar is what it looks like with all 3 elements of the Hernando's RSS feed displaying in natural order. Nothing done but to add a horizontal line and then coloring in CSS code. (this is as much to explain for helpful reference, as it is to give background for asking for specific help)

This is what we have to work with (or what I have to work with), for the raw feed text.



This is what that comes from for what I keep calling the RSS feed (and is a link in the bottom information section of the main forum page

[CDATA[The latest topics from ![CDATA[When mainstream media out and out lies to further an agenda]]></title><link>http://www.hernandoshideaway.net/thread/774</link><description><![CDATA[Last reply by adjensen on Tue, 06 Jan 2015 16:45:14 +0000]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 06 Jan 2015 16:45:14 +0000</pubDate>

Source

The RSS feed is just a text file that websites make available and put a link to (or not) and which sit there for someone to do exactly what we're doing, or watch headlines without visiting sites by using an RSS reader on their own computer (like these). Some feeds put out a lot of information, but ours is simple and you can see inside the above 'code', where the details in the feed come from. 

This is where I need help for anyone with ideas or some experience with PHP. This is how the feed breaks down.



#1 is the thread title or [TITLE]
#2 is the time/date line of the RSS feed Hernando's is generating automatically or [DESCRIPTION]
#3 is is a published date I should be able to change, but am just having no luck figuring out or [PUBDATE]

This is the PHP code for precisely how that is done for each listing. 

---

if (isset($rss_channel['ITEMS']) && count($rss_channel['ITEMS']) > 0)
{
   for ($i=0; $i < count($rss_channel['ITEMS']) && ($i < $max_items || $max_items == 0); $i++)
   {
      echo '<div class="item">'."\n";
      echo ' <a href="'.$rss_channel['ITEMS'][$i]['LINK'].'" target="_top" class="item">'."\n";
      echo '  '.$rss_channel['ITEMS'][$i]['TITLE']."\n";
      echo ' </a>'."\n";
      if ($full_report == true)
      {
         if (isset($rss_channel['ITEMS'][$i]['DESCRIPTION']))
        {
            echo ' <div class="itemdescr">'."\n";
            echo '  '.$rss_channel['ITEMS'][$i]['DESCRIPTION']."\n";
            echo ' </div>'."\n";
         }
       if (isset($rss_channel['ITEMS'][$i]['PUBDATE']))
        {
           echo ' <div class="itempubdate">'."\n";
           echo '  '.date($date_format,strtotime($rss_channel['ITEMS'][$i]['PUBDATE']))."\n";
           echo ' </div>'."\n";
			
       }
	echo '<hr>';
      }
      echo '</div>'."\n";
   }
}

---

Light blue is part 1, green is part 2 and pink is part 3 as it corresponds to the first graphic of the finished feed everyone sees. 

What obviously needs to happen is changing the time being shown on #2 or #3, and then to truncate #2 to at least drop the time zone offset (that '+0000') on every line, and I'd like to dump the whole date from #2 to use #3 alone.

I'm failing in finding how to take the above variables and do string functions (change what parts of the text show up or change something like a number).

Any ideas? 

And just to expound on that, in your "php.ini" file, add this line:

date.timezone="America/Chicago"

That should make the dates Central time

I'm not sure what that means, since I'm not a PHP coder. How is PHP working outside of the PHP script?

something like:

$myString = '[DESCRIPTION]';
$lookFor = ' on ';
$foundAt = strpos($myString, $lookFor);
$finalResult = substr($myString, 0, $foundAt);

It might help if you can see the whole file this is coming out of. The PHP I am using is a drop-in extension out of Wysiwig WB 10 and this one just does this function. I've modified the code to do a few things here and there, and display a bit different..but I'm not finding applicable examples online that apply for how I'd cut that line off here.

factcc.net/tuts/rss_parser.php Right clicking and saving should give you the original to see full context. PHP isn't my thing, as I mentioned, so there might even be a different part of the file I want to change for basically just taking the first 5 words of [DESCRIPTION] and nothing more. (That covers to the name)

What you put up there isn't quite working, no...but it led me off in a direction that may... I'm not just trying to be humble when I say PHP isn't my thing, and I am really dependent on visual environments for making things. (pages..apps..etc), so I hadn't even recalled what I'd read once about renaming the variable that way, which then made perfect sense for....

truncating a string < .....That

It's the precise syntax I'm playing with, but I spent a little time here this afternoon making a new mini-site for testing HH related things, so I don't have to adjust anything but the final update on the live front end anymore. :)

Many thanks!