Empty Date Time Picker field shows current date.

• maira

• August 25, 2016 at 2:38 am

I have three Date Time Picker fields, one is required and the others are not. When the non-required fields are empty, they display the current date, I need them not to show if they’re not being used.

The code I have is (I’m creating a custom date format and translating it to Spanish):

$date_1 = get_field('date1', false, false);
$date1 = date_i18n('j \d\e\ F \-\ G \h\s', strtotime($date_1));
$date_2 = get_field('date2', false, false);
$date2 = date_i18n('j \d\e\ F \-\ G \h\s', strtotime($date_2));
$date_3 = get_field('date3', false, false);
$date3 = date_i18n('j \d\e\ F \-\ G \h\s', strtotime($date_3));
if ( $date1) {
echo '<h5>UPCOMING EVENTS</h5><p> ' . $date1 .  " | " . $date2 . " | " . $date3 . '</p>';
}

Any suggestion?

• John Huebner

• August 25, 2016 at 3:55 am

What is being returned by get_field for these 3 fields?

if there’s no value then is should be an empty string.

$dates = array();
$date_1 = get_field('date1', false, false);
if ($date_1) {
  $dates[] = date_i18n('j \d\e\ F \-\ G \h\s', strtotime($date_1));
}
$date_2 = get_field('date2', false, false);
if ($date_2) {
  $dates[] = date_i18n('j \d\e\ F \-\ G \h\s', strtotime($date_2));
}
$date_3 = get_field('date3', false, false);
if ($date_3) {
  $dates[] = date_i18n('j \d\e\ F \-\ G \h\s', strtotime($date_3));
}
if ( $dates) {
echo '<h5>UPCOMING EVENTS</h5><p> ' . implode(' | ', $dates) . '</p>';
}

• maira

• August 25, 2016 at 4:00 am

Hi John, if I only pick date and time for the required field ($date1), it returns:

UPCOMING EVENTS
17 de agosto – 16hs | Today’s date and current time | Today’s date and current time

I’ll try with your suggestion and will report back.
Thanks.

• rtunon

• September 13, 2017 at 10:27 am

I’ve got the same problem with some Date picker fields and it’s fixed making an if for each one.

On the other hand i would like to tell you: Lot of thanks @maira!
You helped me to fix another problem showing Date picker fields.

It was showing current date even when the fields was filled, and in another use it was rendering a different date from the one saved on the field. I was going craczy, but tried your way to make the date_i18n (different from the one in the ACF documentation) and it works perfect!

So, many thanks!

• maira

• September 13, 2017 at 11:22 am

You’re welcome 🙂

• george_staniland

• May 4, 2021 at 11:32 am

I just came across this discussion now.
Had the same problem.
It’s using the strtotime on an empty string, that generates the current time

So for me an If check on the initial ACF Variable fixed it

Thanks for your help 🙂