Date handling

[Geoffrey]

I am having an issue with Zoom's display of file dates:

All of my .pdf files show a date of 31 Dec 1969.
All dynamically generated pages show the date that the page was spidered (which of course makes sence, but is not optimal).

I have turned off date display for the time being. Any comments or suggestions?

[David]

At the moment Zoom should get the file creation date for each file from the server. Of course for dynamic pages, the file is created anew each time the site is spidered.

For you PDF files what is the creation date of the file on the server (you can see this via FTP programs or Telnet)? Also can you send us a link to one of the PDF files. Finally what webserver and O/S are you using?

You might also want to have a look at this thread.
http://www.wrensoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=95

This is an area where will be improving Zoom in future releases.

-------
David

[Geoffrey]

The .pdf creation dates are various. Some of the files, for instance, report a date (via WS_ftp) of 280105, and Zoom shows 31 Dec 1969.

I am using Zoom in PHP mode on a system running Linux 2.4.28, Apache 1.3.33 and PHP 4.3.10.

The website is password protected. I will send you a private email with access info.

BTW, Zoom is terrific.

[Ray]

Geoff, we looked into this problem on your website and noticed the following:

1.) Some of the ZDAT files uploaded in the "/search" folder had different file date/timestamps. This indicates that the files were not uploaded with Zoom, and that you have not uploaded ALL files after your most recent indexing (ie: you are using some files left over from a previous session)

2.) Since you are uploading the files yourself, you should make sure you have uploaded all files in BINARY mode with your FTP client (not ASCII or text mode).

3.) Most importantly, it seems that you may have modified the PHP files. We can not be sure of this without FTP access to your web server, so please confirm if you have made any modifications to "search.php" or "settings.php". We think you may have modified these files and broken the date/time functionality in the script.

We suspect this because when we downloaded your ZDAT files and tested it on our own server (using the default copy of "search.php"), the "1969" date/time issue did not occur, and it produced correct results.

If you have modified the "search.php" or "settings.php" file, you should re-index your site and use the default versions of these files. If the problem persists using the non-modified files, zip them up (search.php, settings.php, and all ZDAT files) and e-mail them to us (see our Contact Us page).

Let us know if you have any questions.

[Geoffrey]

> Since you are uploading the files yourself, you should make sure you have uploaded all files in BINARY mode with your FTP client (not ASCII or text mode). <

I have uploaded the .zdat files in binary mode and the .php files in ASCII mode.


> please confirm if you have made any modifications to "search.php" or "settings.php"<
The only mod that I have made to the search.php was the following:

//Let others know about Zoom. GHG mod 12 Feb 05 to include zoom graphic
if ($ZoomInfo == 1)
print("<center>

" . $STR_POWEREDBY . " <a href=\"http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"/graphics/zoom.gif\" alt=\"the Zoom Search Engine\" width=64 height=33 border=0 align=\"middle\"></a></p></center>");

I have made several changes to the settings.php mostly dealing with the display of categories. Here is the file:

<?php
$UseUTF8 = 0;
$Charset = "windows-1252";
$MapAccents = 0;
$MinWordLen = 2;
<------snip--lots of text removed-------->
$STR_SEARCH_TOOK = "This search took";
$STR_SECONDS = "seconds.";
?>

[Geoffrey]

Update

I have reindexed the website, and let Zoom do the upload, and as you suggested, the dates for the .pdf files were reporting correctly.

I then reapplied the mods that I have previously made to the search.php and settings.php files (see above), and ...joy!

All is well!

Sorry for all this. In the future, I'll follow this procedure when reindexing.

Long live Zoom!

[Ray]

Geoff, glad to hear the problem is fixed.

However, I should point out that you shouldn't edit the "settings.php" file. This was the cause of your grief. Your edited settings file contained out of date information which did not match the data in the ZDAT files.

You should not need to ever edit "settings.php", because all changes can be made from the Indexer application. For example, all of the text messages such as "Powered by..." , "Search time took: " etc, are all modifiable from the "Languages" tab of the Configuration window. They are defined in the ".zlang" language files, which allow people to translate, or edit the text on the search page. Please see Chapter 6.2 of our Users Guide for more information:
http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/usersguide.html

We'll have to add a message in the settings file in the future, to warn people about this.

[Geoffrey]

Thanks!

I have created my own language file and will use it in the future indexing. And I'll leave the settings.php alone.