Joomla 1.5 - Created date to mySql

Joomla! allows you to set date values through the Joomla! framework whenever you want to save a date to the database.

To use a the current date/time in your JModel entended class, do the following.

In the store() method after the $row->bind() method, add:

//Get a JDate object
$createdate = &JFactory::getDate();
//Create a date in MySQL's datetime format
$row->created = $createdate->toMySQL();
//PS: make sure your table have a created field :)

Joomla!'s JDate also allows you to set custom Unix dates simply by passing in the date to JFactory::getDate() method. E.g.

$createdate =& JFactory::getDate(time());

Note that you wil override the date everytime you save to the database. See if you can modify the model to set the create date only on new saves. :)

See Joomla!'s API documentation for more on what JDate can do.

http://api.joomla.org/Joomla-Framework/Utilities/JDate.html

Joomla 1.5 Additional select tag values

This continues on my blog post on how to add a select tag through the Joomla! framework. The code that follows will show you how to add to the ObjectList for a Select tag. This is especially useful where you have to use a select tag in a search form.

I normally use a value of 0 to indicate a search of "All Values".

The first thing you do is create a class at the top of your page as follows:

<?php
class MySelectObject{
var $id;
var $name;
}
?>

Then to use it do the following:

<?php
$db = &JFactory::getDBO();
$query = "SELECT `id`,`name` FROM
#__town";
$db->setQuery($query);
$townlist = $db->loadObjectList();

/*Create an instance of MySelectObject*/
$mso = new MySelectObject();

/*Set values*/
$mso->id = 0;
$mso->name = 'Any Town';

/*Create an array for insertion*/
$tmpArr = array(0 => $mso);

/*Merge with array result from query. Add to the front of list*/
$selectList =
array_merge($tmpArr,$townlist);

/*Make MySelectObject the default selected*/
echo
JHTML::_('Select.genericlist',$selectList,'town',"","id","name",0);

?>