Check if a datetime field is empty does not work

[chrizz]

Hey everyone,

I am struggeling a little bit with a datetime field for my pages.

I want to check whether a datetime field is empty or not, but with my first assumtion this is not as easy as it seems to be... :/

var_dump(empty($page->verein_datum));
var_dump($page->verein_datum);

returns

bool(true) 
int(1397253600)

I am not sure if this behaviour is wanted but I try to figure out which way is the best to check if the date is set or not.

 

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[adrian]

Firstly, if var_dump($page->verein_datum); returns int(1397253600) then the field is not blank - it is set to: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 22:00:00 GMT

If it is actually empty, it is as simple as:

if(!$page->verein_datum) {
    //date field is empty
}

but if you want, you could also do:

if(empty($page->verein_datum)) {
    //date field is empty
}

or

if($page->verein_datum === '') {
    //date field is empty
}

[chrizz]

thanks Adrian for your suggestions. !$page->verein_datum works perfectly. 

I was just wondering why var_dump(empty($page->verein_datum)) returns true (= blank) and var_dump without empty returns the value as expected... 

perhaps it's better to stop thinking about it and enjoy coding with PW

[kongondo]

Your var_dump(empty($page->verein_datum)); worked for me as expected

[chrizz]

hm... nevermind... perhaps some weird behaviour in my xampp development environment.

Thanks anyway