Timezone Errors with post dates

[asecondwill]

Expected Behavior

I'm expecting the timezone setting in wp-admin to be used by the timber filters to output the time_ago

Actual behavior

My site is set to Australia/Adilade
{{ post.date('j F Y H:i') }} shows the published date in the correct timezone.

Time Ago
{{ post.post_date|time_ago }}
Time ago says "In about 7 hours" at 1230 UTC when I'm testing, again the publish date is 1930 today (16th May) - Adilaide time, which was 3 hours ago.

UPDATE: if i try
{{ post.date|time_ago }}

I get 14hours ago. which is still wrong, it's 2230 in Adilade so 3 hours ago.

Steps to reproduce behavior

Time ago
{{ post.post_date|time_ago }}

with composer twig:
"timber/timber": "2.0.0.beta-1",

Notes

I got the same behaviour in Timber 1, so upgraded thinking this had been fixed in 2 having read through the tickets here.

What version of Timber are you using?

2.0.0.beta-1

What version of WordPress are you using?

Wordpress 6.2

What version of PHP are you using?

8.0

How did you install Timber?

Installed or updated Timber through Composer

[asecondwill]

Updated as I figured out the published date is

{{ post.date('j F Y H:i') }}

not
{{ post.post_date|date('j F Y')}}

[gchtr]

Most of the date functionality was fixed in 2.x, but it could very well be that I missed the |time_ago() filter. We will first have to add a test to confirm this is still an issue.

[Levdbas]

Did some local tests @gchtr and I recreated the same two outcomes that @asecondwill describes be it with different dates and time zones.

{{ post.post_date|time_ago }} does not seem to take the timezone into account because it relies on time() instead of using current_time() see WP docs

{{ post.date }} as stated in the Timber docs only returns the publication date without the time. So when using |time_ago on that it will always count use that day at midnight. That in combination with our first issue gives leads to inexplicable behavior. Using {{post.date('j F Y h:i')|time_ago}}, so explicitly force hours and minutes in, fixes this issue as well. So when you want to use |time_ago, it's best to use post_date.

[gchtr]

I found out what the issue was and added a fix in #2758.

{{ post.date }} as stated in the Timber docs only returns the publication date without the time. So when using |time_ago on that it will always count use that day at midnight. That in combination with our first issue gives leads to inexplicable behavior. Using {{post.date('j F Y h:i')|time_ago}}, so explicitly force hours and minutes in, fixes this issue as well.

Correct. You should use a full date and time string when using {{ post.date }}. But you don’t necessarily have to use j F Y H:i:s. You can also use one of the following:

{{ post.date('U')|time_ago }}
{{ post.date(constant('DATE_ATOM'))|time_ago }}

• U is a timestamp
• DATE_ATOM is an example for using a predefined timezone constant. See The DateTimeInterface interface. You could also use DATE_W3C or DATE_RFC3339. I just feel like DATE_ATOM is the easiest to remember.

So when you want to use |time_ago, it's best to use post_date.

You can use {{ post.post_date|time_ago }}. That should work just as fine for the |time_ago filter. The only difference to using {{ post.date('U')|time_ago }} is that no filtering will be applied.

{{ post.post_date|time_ago }} does not seem to take the timezone into account because it relies on time() instead of using current_time().

Just a note here. As of WordPress 5.3, it’s not recommended to use current_time() anymore when you want the current time. See Date/Time component improvements in WordPress 5.3. The correct usage to work with time in Timber is document in the Date/Time Guide.

[alessandro-newzoo]

@gchtr just wanted to let you know the results of my tests too, as they're all pretty inconsistent.

• Timber version: 2.0.0-beta.2
• WP version: 6.2.2
• WP settings timezone: Europe/Amsterdam

I have an article I published 15 minutes ago.

Let's start from your suggestions:

✅ {{ post.date(constant('DATE_ATOM'))|time_ago }} : 15 minutes ago

❌ {{ post.date('U')|time_ago }} : 53 years ago

❌ {{ post.post_date|time_ago }} : 2 hours from now

Other tests:

❌ {{ post.date|time_ago }} : 12 hours ago

❌ {{post.date('j F Y h:i')|time_ago}} : 10 hours ago

[gchtr]

@alessandro-newzoo My suggestions don’t work yet. But they should as soon as the pull request #2758 is merged.

Maybe you can check it out when you test the fix by installing from the pull request’s branch?

composer require timber/timber:dev-2.x-time-ago

[alessandro-newzoo]

@gchtr ohhh sorry about that, I misinterpreted your previous comment!
I don't have a lot of time this week to test another version, but I might give it a shot next week.

For now, for some reason, {{ post.date(constant('DATE_ATOM'))|time_ago }} seems to work perfectly, so I'll use that for the time being.

Thank you SO much both for the PR and for providing a snippet that finally made me stop scratching my head after 2 days haha!

[gchtr]

@alessandro-newzoo That’s alright. I figured the first line in my comment can easily missed :).

For now, for some reason, {{ post.date(constant('DATE_ATOM'))|time_ago }} seems to work perfectly, so I'll use that for the time being.

I think that works because the DATE_ATOM format includes the timezone in the returned date, so the underlying strtotime() can interpret it correctly when you use |time_ago.

Thank you SO much both for the PR and for providing a snippet that finally made me stop scratching my head after 2 days haha!

You’re welcome! Dates and time made me scratch my head a lot in the past. I took quite some time to eventually "get it".

[gchtr]

Fixed in #2758.