How to format pubdate so I only get year in the catalog output please?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by millan

Do you think it might be something to do with my installation of the Calibre's new update I have installed today?

Well if it was OK before you did the update then yes, but it I doubt it was anything you did

I just put the same template onto a test library of ~300 books, no BAD DATEs, but I have different date format settings - you could try changing yours to match -

# Control how dates are displayed

gui_pubdate_display_format = 'yyyy-MM-dd'
gui_timestamp_display_format = 'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss'
gui_last_modified_display_format = 'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss'

You can download 2.7 from here http://download.calibre-ebook.com/2.7.0/

You will need to uninstall 2.8 in order to downgrade to 2.7 - don't worry you wont lose your library or config data, but if you're anxious - back them up first.

BR

[millan]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Well if it was OK before you did the update then yes, but it I doubt it was anything you did

I just put the same template onto a test library of ~300 books, no BAD DATEs, but I have different date format settings - you could try changing yours to match -

# Control how dates are displayed

gui_pubdate_display_format = 'yyyy-MM-dd'
gui_timestamp_display_format = 'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss'
gui_last_modified_display_format = 'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss'

You can download 2.7 from here http://download.calibre-ebook.com/2.7.0/

You will need to uninstall 2.8 in order to downgrade to 2.7 - don't worry you wont lose your library or config data, but if you're anxious - back them up first.

BR

Amazing, it works now after changing the formats
mine were something like dd-MM-yyyy and now
like yours
yyyy-MM-dd

thank you indeed helping me to solve this problem for me.
all the best

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by millan

Amazing, it works now after changing the formats
mine were something like dd-MM-yyyy and now
like yours
yyyy-MM-dd

thank you indeed helping me to solve this problem for me.
all the best

@millan - Hmmm, well my suggestion was a very long shot in the dark.

Usually when I do that I have an inkling of why I'm making the suggestion. But I don't have a logical explanation as to why changing those formats should have fixed your problem in a custom column format- but I'm glad it did.

Why character formatting of a date in one place (in a tweak) should have any effect on a different character formatting of the same date in another place (custom column template) is a mystery to me.

I'm tempted to suggest its a bug.

BR

[millan]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@millan - Hmmm, well my suggestion was a very long shot in the dark.

Usually when I do that I have an inkling of why I'm making the suggestion. But I don't have a logical explanation as to why changing those formats should have fixed your problem in a custom column format- but I'm glad it did.

Why character formatting of a date in one place (in a tweak) should have any effect on a different character formatting of the same date in another place (custom column template) is a mystery to me.

I'm tempted to suggest its a bug.

BR

Please do so and or test my earlier settings for yourself, just in case as well.
By the way I have changed mine to yyyy-MMM-dd in order to see the month in letters. That works too.
I also wanted to test the sorting that column:
yes it sorts correctly as well:

year order-month order-day order
ie:
2014-jan-02
2014-jan-05
2014-feb-07
2014-apr-01

[chaley]

The problem happens because by default the template system uses the formatted versions of columns, not the underlying "real" information. This is required in order to produce formatted values. However, that means that when using the template {pubdate:format_date(yyyy)}, the format_date function sees what is displayed in calibre, e.g. Jan 2013. Format_date calls a library function (not part of calibre) that tries to work out what the original date was given the formatted value. This function can fail in what seems to be arbitrary ways, in which case format_date will produce "BAD DATE". For example, the library function apparently cannot handle "Sep 2003" but can handle "May 2003".

You can avoid this problem by using a different template

program:format_date(raw_field('pubdate'), 'yyyy')

This template works because raw_field fetches the underlying value, not the formatted value.