🚀 go-pugleaf

JRS:  In article <m3og3rsoab.fsf@funland.helsinki.sonera.fi> of Fri, 21
Jul 2000 11:42:04 seen in news:comp.lang.javascript, Otto J. Makela
<om@iki.fi> wrote:
>Dr John Stockton <jrs@merlyn.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>> JRS:  In article <m366q1asij.fsf@funland.helsinki.sonera.fi> of Thu, 20
>> Jul 2000 12:35:56 seen in news:comp.lang.javascript, Otto J. Makela
>> <om@iki.fi> wrote:
>> >document.lastModified: Wed 19 Jul 2000 08:22:20 PM EEST
>> >Last Modified at undefined NaN-0NaN-0NaN 0NaN:0NaN:0NaN UTC 
>> 
>> Ouch!  Where did that "PM EEST" come from?  Have you been reading a
>> version via a cache in EEST?
>
>No, it's not from a cache.  Manually trying out the connection to Merlyn,

Actually to www.merlyn, which is (AIUI) on the other side of London to
merlyn, which is here.

>I find that it does seem to deliver the date in a reasonable format:
> ...
>Last-Modified: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 22:45:49 GMT

>So the problem with the date conversion seems to be my malfunctioning browser.

Believable.

>> Ignoring that point, *if* document.lastModified arrives as my server
>> appears to send it, the following shuffle should do - now in
   xxxxxxx   appeared   :-(
>> jswkcalc.htm


>Now this bit of your page looks like:
>-- 
>document.lastModified format may depend on Server/Cache/?
>document.lastModified: Fri 21 Jul 2000 01:45:49 AM EEST
>Last Modified at undefined NaN-0NaN-0NaN 0NaN:0NaN:0NaN UTC 
>Last Modified 20 J-Fr- 2ul 2000 0 ? 

ISTM that the lastModified string must be unsatisfactory for new Date(),
on your system.

I've spotted a bug in mine, which explains what was previously
mysterious; I corrected the year (Y2k error) but got the Day of Week
from the uncorrected Date.  Now fixed.

There seems, however, to be an error of an hour *more* than can be
explained by the difference between UTC and BST, working locally; I have
yet to try it via www.merlyn itself.





More generally : For the average reader of most pages, lastModified is
not really useful IMHO.  It will change if a trivial change, such as
fixing a spelling error, is made.

It will be much better if the actual human, or program, that edits the
source file can be made to attend to the date; it is then transferred in
a net- and browser- independent manner.

To c.l.j, d.h.a
 
-- 
� John Stockton, Surrey, UK.  jrs@merlyn.demon.co.uk   Turnpike v4.00   MIME. �
 Web <URL: http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
 PAS, EXE in <URL: http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/> - see 00index.txt.
 Dates - miscdate.htm moredate.htm jswkcalc.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm  &c.