Rails - Jun 2006 - DateTimes get converted to Dates in XML-RPC????

Hi all -

I have written an XML-RPC app using action-web-service.  Mostly works 
well.  Except I just noticed that my :datetime types are coming back as 
:date types.

That is, when in the console I query the record via Foo.find_by_id(123) I 
get back actual datetimes.  If I then do it via XML-RPC, fetching that 
same record I get back dates (ie. hour/minute/second are set to 00:00:00)

Any ideas?  Tried google, and ruby-forum is down and am up against a 
deadline...

My api/model method looks like this:

         def find_by_id(id)
                 Foo.find(id)
         end

thanks!

-philip

> Hi all -
>
> I have written an XML-RPC app using action-web-service.  Mostly works well.
> Except I just noticed that my :datetime types are coming back as :date
types.
>
> That is, when in the console I query the record via Foo.find_by_id(123) I
get
> back actual datetimes.  If I then do it via XML-RPC, fetching that same 
> record I get back dates (ie. hour/minute/second are set to 00:00:00)
>
> Any ideas?  Tried google, and ruby-forum is down and am up against a 
> deadline...
>
> My api/model method looks like this:
>
>        def find_by_id(id)
>                Foo.find(id)
>        end
>
> thanks!
To followup,  Foo.find_by_id(123).to_xml spits back valid :datetimes... so 
it doesn''t appear to be some underlying xml thing.  Seems it''s
*in* AWS...

???

-philip

Hi Philip,

Philip Hallstrom wrote:
> I have written an XML-RPC app using action-web-service.  Mostly works 
> well.  Except I just noticed that my :datetime types are coming back as 
> :date types.
>
> That is, when in the console I query the record via Foo.find_by_id(123) I 
> get back actual datetimes.  If I then do it via XML-RPC, fetching that 
> same record I get back dates (ie. hour/minute/second are set to 00:00:00)
>
> Any ideas?  Tried google, and ruby-forum is down and am up against a 
> deadline...
I''m not sure I understand your question completely, but I''ll
offer a couple
of tidbits just in case one might help...

1) Time is more "reliable" than Date

2) You might take a look at Time.now.xmlschema

hth,
Bill

>> I have written an XML-RPC app using action-web-service.  Mostly works
well.
>> Except I just noticed that my :datetime types are coming back as :date 
>> types.
>> 
>> That is, when in the console I query the record via Foo.find_by_id(123)
I
>> get back actual datetimes.  If I then do it via XML-RPC, fetching that
same
>> record I get back dates (ie. hour/minute/second are set to 00:00:00)
>> 
>> Any ideas?  Tried google, and ruby-forum is down and am up against a 
>> deadline...
>
> I''m not sure I understand your question completely, but
I''ll offer a couple
> of tidbits just in case one might help...
>
> 1) Time is more "reliable" than Date
>
> 2) You might take a look at Time.now.xmlschema
That''s the thing... I''m not doing really utilizing any of
those.  The
table has a :datetime field (created_at/updated_at).  With AWS you set up 
your service, then simply make the calls to the model to fetch what you 
want and return it "as is".  AWS then converts that into xml-rpc or
soap.

So, I''m "done" after doing Foo.find_by_id(123) and returning
that.
Meaning I''d never have a chance to manipulate the data itself.  Putting
in
a breakpoint right there shows the data is right.  Somewhere in AWS it is 
truncating it....

>>> I have written an XML-RPC app using action-web-service.  Mostly
works
>>> well. Except I just noticed that my :datetime types are coming back
as
>>> :date types.
>>> 
>>> That is, when in the console I query the record via
Foo.find_by_id(123) I
>>> get back actual datetimes.  If I then do it via XML-RPC, fetching
that
>>> same record I get back dates (ie. hour/minute/second are set to
00:00:00)
>>> 
>>> Any ideas?  Tried google, and ruby-forum is down and am up against
a
>>> deadline...
>> 
>> I''m not sure I understand your question completely, but
I''ll offer a couple
>> of tidbits just in case one might help...
>> 
>> 1) Time is more "reliable" than Date
>> 
>> 2) You might take a look at Time.now.xmlschema
>
> That''s the thing... I''m not doing really utilizing any of
those.  The table
> has a :datetime field (created_at/updated_at).  With AWS you set up your 
> service, then simply make the calls to the model to fetch what you want and
> return it "as is".  AWS then converts that into xml-rpc or soap.
>
> So, I''m "done" after doing Foo.find_by_id(123) and
returning that. Meaning
> I''d never have a chance to manipulate the data itself.  Putting in
a
> breakpoint right there shows the data is right.  Somewhere in AWS it is 
> truncating it....
I spent all morning following the code and arrived at XMLRPC''s
create.rb
conv2value method.

It''s converting paramaters into strings, and even though my param is a 
DateTime it matches Date which then did this:

   when Date
    t = param
       @writer.tag("dateTime.iso8601",
         format("%.4d%02d%02dT00:00:00", t.year, t.month, t.day))


I changed that to this:

   when Date
      @writer.tag("dateTime.iso8601",
param.strftime("%Y%m%dT%H:%M:%S"))


and it seems to work just as well...

Any gotchas I''m missing?