file time/last updated problem

[SammyAnno]

Hy,

shortly
I have exported my library, reinstalled windows and imported my library, problem is that all the dates (file time and last updated) are 01.01.1970.

When I open exported .xml file I see "date modified" and "date added" which is correct.
here it is:

<key>Date Modified</key><date>Mon Dec 06 07:35:03 2010</date>
<key>Date Added</key><date>Sun Dec 12 16:14:38 2010</date>

Why winamp doesn't recognize this when I import it, can I do something about that? Is there any script to make things right?

Please
Thank you

[SammyAnno]

any help?

[Batter Pudding]

On your new PC, is the date format the same? (Control Panel\Regional Settings)

Try exporting from your newly installed winamp - what do the dates look like?

As someone who was born on 01/01/1970 I can tell you that this is "year zero" for the time counters used by PCs. So makes sense that this is the date that appears when there is a fault.

[SammyAnno]

I did that, my date format is still the same
...and not recognized

someone, please

[DrO]

if you've not updated to 5.61 then i'd suggest you do that and then trying things based on '* Improved: [ml_impex] Date parsing on import' from the Winamp 5.61 changelog.

if you are using 5.61 then probably best to attach a small example xml file showing the issue and hopefully someone on the dev team will be able to resolve it for a later client release.

-daz

[SammyAnno]

Thanks for respond

I exported library from version 5.60, and imported in version 5.61 (new windows installation)

...

"i'd suggest you do that and then trying things based on '* Improved: [ml_impex] Date parsing on import' from the Winamp 5.61 changelog." ..I don't understand what you mean by that.

...I have attached the example of .xml

...I really need to import dates

[Batter Pudding]

"To parse data" means to convert data from one digital form to another. In this case it will mean to read the exported xml file and convert it into the internal format that Winamp requires for the Media Library. So the bug that was fixed directly addresses your "mis-reading dates" issue.


What does an exported file look like now? Export an example and look at the date layout. Does it have the same screwy looking dates as your example?

I say "screwy" as the layout of "day month date time year" looks very odd. My thought would be to convert your exported data into a layout that Winamp can now understand based on a freshly exported example. (The devs and\or Dr Egg may be able to help point to the date format expected)

[SammyAnno]

Thank you for you reply, will try that as soon as I get home....
I believe I did that and my date format is the same :/ ...(maybe regional settings will try to mess around with that)

...but how can I convert all the date formats at once?

[Batter Pudding]

If date format is the same, then no need to work out how to mass-convert. (Basically, we would of pulled a few tricks with "Search and Replace" pattern matching the dates)

Hopefully a Winamp Dev will explain the import date bug to us, and suggest a way to recover your data.

How many tracks are we talking about?

[SammyAnno]

cca 17 000 tracks

...I've tried and the date format remains the same. I thought if there is some script to change all date formats, or some trick in dreamweaver?

...thanks

[Batter Pudding]

If the date format is the same, then there is no need to look at converting the dates of the old backup. This is therefore a issue with importing the data itself.

I assume you have carefully compared the "new" export to the "backup" you made? Can you see any other differences in the XML?

(Personally, I just use notepad... so I do not know what Dreamweaver is trying to do to your data. I'd assume it is just neater looking formatting? But the search and replace trick would have been the same no matter which software you view it with.)

[SammyAnno]

...they are identical
yeah, I imported that new database I created (where all "date added" are today) and it again changed all dates to 01.01.1970.

... hopefully someone will find an answer

[Batter Pudding]

What country are you in? Which locale do you have set?

Try swapping all local and regional settings to that broken English option. English (US). (Need to restart the computer)

Now try doing an import. And a test export. Could it be that the Devs have only ever tested this in the US with US date formats? (There are other incidents of them making odd decisions which don't work well elsewhere. Like the SendTo->FlashDrive option which assumes you have an iPod and ignores the selected file order... (Personal gripe that I shouldn't add in here... hehe Just brought it up to show that there are a few odd decisions made))

[SammyAnno]

I'm in Croatia.

changed to enlish regional settings exported/imported and everything is fine.

now... how can I change date formats to entire .xml ...

but at least we know where the problem is

date format that works is:
<key>Date Modified</key><date>2010-10-23T01:34:08Z</date>
<key>Date Added</key><date>2011-03-23T00:55:11Z</date>

[Batter Pudding]

Ah. They are very different dates now. Glad we have found why it was happening.

As you have Dreamweaver, I assume you are a website coder. So my suggestion would be to make a script to convert the date formats from one file and write it back to a fresh file. Or just some clever use of search and replace.

Are all of your dates from 2010 and 2011?

<date>Mon Dec 06 07:35:03 2010</date>
<date>2010-12-06T07:35:03Z</date>

Look at the dates. The biggest pain is the "T". The rest is easy.

A search and replace on "<date>Mon ", "<date>Tue ", etc and replace with "<date>" would quickly strip the days we don't need. (Yes, repeat seven times for each day of the week)

Now for each month, "Dec " to "2010-12-". You will probably need to do some of this in batches to handle and 2009, 2011 dates depending on how many years data you have.

Same trick to change " 2010</date>" to "Z</date>"

This now gets us to this intermediate format:
<date>2010-12-06 07:35:03Z</date>

This just leaves us that annoying "T" to sort out. Can Dreamweaver do pattern matching in its search and replace? "<date>* *</date>" to "<date>*T*</date>" would be good.

OR... replace "-01 " with "-01T" but this needs repeating 31 times, and will need watching to make sure it doesn't trash other tags.


I don't work with XML, but I assume there are tools in Dreamweaver that could target date formats? Or could it be loaded into Excel, data split into columns. That would make it very easy to convert then. As long as the XML would export back out of Excel in a useable form.

Obviously the above is done on a COPY of your originally exported file.

[SammyAnno]

...will try something with that you wrote

but I saw a new posibillity , when I add new files to library winamp ads "file time" which is same as "date modified" in explorer, if I could make winamp to use "date created" from explorer instead "date modified" it would be awsome!

...or maybe to reset "date modified" to "date created" in explorer?
...anyone knows is it possible, first or second option