ttninjs-dates external and internal

ttninjs-dates.md

TTNINJS Dates

This is an attempt to document the interpretation of various date fields in the ttninjs spec. Some fields are internal to TT and not visible in metadata delivered to customers. Internal fields are prefixed _.

versioncreated

Is the time this version of the object in question was created.

• For photos this is the time of the photo.
• For news articles it is the time of release.
• For planning posts it is the time the planning post was created.

versionstored

The time we added the object to our database.

• For photos where we act as a slave database, this is the time of archival in SDL.
• For news articles it is when we added it to our database.
• For planning it is when we added it to our database.

embargoed

The time an object is embargoed until. Include a time.

date

Date part only no time (see datetime).

The date of an object. This is most often the same as versioncreated, with notable exceptions:

• For photos this is the date the photo was taken.
• For news articles it is is the date the news story was released.
• For planning it is the date of the planned event.

datetime

Date and time

The date and time of an object.

This field is exactly the same as date, but only exists when there is a relevant time to communicate. For items where we have no time, just a date (such as for old photography), this field is left blank.

We want to avoid confusion about communicating 00:00 as time, when we actually have no relevant time data.

enddate

Date part only

Same as date but for ending.

enddatetime

Date and time

Same as datetime but for ending.

_tstamp

Internal field used for search result sorting. It is mapped differently depending on type of data.

• news this field is set to versioncreated (time of news story).
• planning this field is set to datetime (time of planned event).
• photos:
  1. if versioncreated is 19700101 we believe it's unix time (epoch) 0 and not a correct date.
  2. if versioncreated is not okay:
     1. use versionstored if it is before last midnight. The midnight rule is to avoid old photos appear on first page.
     2. else null (we have no okay date)

3. if versioncreated is okay:
   1. use versioncreated if it is before last midnight.
   2. else use now. This is so that photography for today that are indexed/recevied out-of-order, still will appear in the order we receive them.