# Site.time -\> tomorrow

**URL:** <https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [November 8, 2021, 9:24pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658 "2021-11-08T21:24:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 14\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mcnesium](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/mcnesium/32/512_2.png) [@mcnesium](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/mcnesium)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2021, 9:24pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/1 "2021-11-08T21:24:26Z")

</div>

I run a site for a venue (student bar) that features a collection for `events`. Every event has a start date in the YAML header, that looks e.g. like this:

```
date: 2021-11-08 20:00

```

The home page lists all events that will happen in the future using this snippet:

```
{% assign future_events = site.events | where_exp: "event", "event.date > site.time %}
{% for event in future_events %}
    …
   {{ event.title }}
    …
{% endfor %}

```

Now that Corona makes us count the number of guests in the venue, we want to show this on the website. So there is a counter object in the YAML header of each event, that will be shown along with the event’s other data with every build.

Problem: the loop over `future_events` will dismiss today’s event right at the beginning of the event, because from that point in time `site.time` will be larger than `event.date`.

So I tried to create a `midnight` object to compare it with `event.date` like this:

```
{% assign tomorrow = 'now' | date: '%s' | plus: 86400 | date: '%F' %}
{% assign midnight = tomorrow | append: ' 0:00' | date: '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M' %}

assign future_events = site.events | where_exp: "event", "event.date > midnight

```

I assumed the `date: … ` filters to make this a date object, but Jekyll 4.2.0 still rejects this with

> Liquid Exception: Liquid error (line …): comparison of Time with String failed in …

So how can I make `tomorrow` and/or `midnight` a date object?  
How is `event.date` a Time object anyway? Isn’t it just a random string from the YAML header?  
What else could I compare `event.date` with?

For simplicity I would like to avoid the definition of an end date for every event, but rather assume the website to not show tonight’s event anymore after midnight.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 6:08am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/2 "2021-11-09T06:08:10Z")

</div>

> [@mcnesium](#):
>
> ```auto
> {% assign midnight = tomorrow | append: ' 0:00' | date: '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M' %}
> 
> ```

Does this perhaps stay a date object if you end as

```auto
| date

```

i.e. without formatting as a string. Which is your error.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 6:27am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/3 "2021-11-09T06:27:00Z")

</div>

If you have trouble still in Liquid or want an approach that doesn’t require building the entire site, I have a JS solution from my site.

> <https://github.com/MichaelCurrin/the-buckfever-underground/blob/master/_includes/show-list.html>

It has a list of events in `tour`. On the frontend, all the events on today or later are shown.

When the time rolls over to midnight for a new page, if you refresh the page then any events for the past day are hidden.

* * *

You may not want to keep the event data only in a JS object like I did.

What you could is take data that exists in collections and turn that into JS code.

maybe you have every event in the `_events` collection as a Markdown page with datetime in the frontmatter). Then you could do this.

```auto
<ul id="list"></ul>

<script>
let eventData = {
  {% for e in site.events %}
    { title: {{ e.title }}, datetime: {{ e.datetime }} },
  {% endfor %}
}

// e.g. 2021-11-02 13:45
const today = new Date();

// e.g. 2021-11-02 0:00
today.setUTCHours(0, 0, 0, 0);

// restrict events list to only events on or after midnight of today. 
evenrData = eventData.filter(event => new Date(event.datetime) >= today);

const list = document.getElementById("list")

for (const e of eventData) {
  const li = document.createElement('li');
  li.innerHTML = `<b>${e.datetime}</b> ${show.title}`;
  ul.appendChild(li);
}
</script>

```

You’ll just have to experiment with date from Jekyll to JS on a single item.

e.g. For a given event

```auto
---
datetime: 2021-11-02 13:45
---
<script>
  const datetimeJekyll = {{ page.datetime | date: "???" }}
  const datetimeJS = new Date( datetimeJekyll)
  console.log(datetimeJS)
</script>

```

* * *

JS keeps it dynamic. So the value for “now” is the time in the browser on page load and not the time the site was built, which means the list updates when you refresh the page and does not require a rebuild of the site. Though you can schedule a rebuild if you wanted to use the Jekyll approach without JS.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mcnesium](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/mcnesium/32/512_2.png) [@mcnesium](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/mcnesium)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 8:26am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/4 "2021-11-09T08:26:25Z")

</div>

Your suggestion to apply the `date` filter without a format fails with

> Liquid Exception: Liquid error (line …): wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2) in …

Also, thank you for your other approach, but restructuring everything to javascript is not an option for now.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 10:03am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/5 "2021-11-09T10:03:28Z")

</div>

Hello @mcnesium  
Based on Liquid’s Ruby documentation for the `date` filter:  
[https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/liquid/4.0.3/Liquid/StandardFilters#date-instance\_method](https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/liquid/4.0.3/Liquid/StandardFilters#date-instance_method)

The result is meant to be a _string_ and not _date_ or _time_ object.

So, you will have to use a custom filter (written in Ruby).  
The downside being, you’ll have to forego automatic deploys from GitHub and either manually build and push the built site to GitHub or set up GitHub Actions to handle the deployment for you…

Either ways, there is no simpler solution as of now.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mcnesium](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/mcnesium/32/512_2.png) [@mcnesium](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/mcnesium)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 10:34am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/6 "2021-11-09T10:34:34Z")

</div>

> [@ashmaroli](#):
>
> Based on Liquid’s Ruby documentation for the `date` filter:  
> [https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/liquid/4.0.3/Liquid/StandardFilters#date-instance\_method](https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/liquid/4.0.3/Liquid/StandardFilters#date-instance_method)
> 
> The result is meant to be a _string_ and not _date_ or _time_ object.

Ok thanks, this sounds reasonable, especially because [according to the docs, there is no such thing as a ‘Time’ type in Liquid](https://shopify.github.io/liquid/basics/types/).

The question remails, why `event.date` is considered a Time type, at least by `jekyll serve`.

Approaching it from the other side, how would I use the `where_exp` filter with converting `event.date` to a string. Would a `>` comparison work on strings in Liquid?

> [@ashmaroli](#):
>
> The downside being, you’ll have to forego automatic deploys from GitHub and either manually build and push the built site to GitHub or set up GitHub Actions to handle the deployment for you…

This is not on Github but a self-hosted solution which _does_ deploy automatically 😉

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 10:57am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/7 "2021-11-09T10:57:21Z")

</div>

> [@mcnesium](#):
>
> …why `event.date` is considered a Time type…?

Because `event` is a `Jekyll::Document` from the `site.events` collection.  
Documents have a builtin `date` attribute (unlike _pages_ like `/about.html`) that is generated from either the filename (for posts) or the front matter (non-post docs).

> [@mcnesium](#):
>
> how would I use the `where_exp` filter with converting `event.date` to a string. Would a `>` comparison work on strings in Liquid?

No. The `>` comparison wouldn’t _reliably_ work with strings. You’ll have to convert strings to integers for that.

* * *

I now realize that your best bet is to use JavaScript to alter the `display` CSS based on _current time_ rather than depend on Jekyll’s `site.time`.  
To illustrate, say, I have a `{{ site.time }}` somehere in your layout and had triggered a build on `Nov 07, 2021 12:00:00 UTC` with no other build triggered till now. Irrespective of the time of day thereafter, the markup rendered from `{{ site.time }}` is going to be _outdated_ and will show `2021-11-07...` even right now.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/8 "2021-11-09T17:52:10Z")

</div>

I agree with the integers comparison

If you want to compare timestamps, convert to Unix timestamp as integer or float then you can easily compare

```auto
12345670000 > 12349990000

```

> %s Number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC e.g.  
> 1452355261

e.g.

```auto
{% assign now = 'now' | date: '%s' %}
{% assign event_time = page.datetime | date: '%s' %}

{% if now > event_time %}

```

* * *

And site.time is noted somewhere as deprecated for Jekyll. It still works but you’re supposed to use

```auto
'now' | date: ...

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mcnesium](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/mcnesium/32/512_2.png) [@mcnesium](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/mcnesium)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2021, 6:57pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/9 "2021-11-09T18:57:36Z")

</div>

@ashmaroli are you trying to suggest to turn event-related dom objects on and off client side? As I already stated, porting event handling from Jekyll collections to Javascript is not an option for now.

@MichaelCurrin thanks for the deprecation note, I will try to take this into account.

> [@MichaelCurrin](#):
>
> `{% assign event_time = page.datetime | date: '%s' %}`

I am still not sure how I can fiddle with `event.date` within that assignment using `where_exp`:

```
{% assign future_events = site.events | where_exp: "event", "event.date > now "%}

```

Trying `where_exp: "event", "( event.date‌ | date: '%s' )" > now` returns

> Liquid Exception: Liquid syntax error (line …): Expected dotdot but found pipe in …

Is this even a valid approach when looping over all `site.events` collection items? I could not yet find a way to alter data inside that piped `where_exp`.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 12:01pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/10 "2021-11-10T12:01:01Z")

</div>

> [@MichaelCurrin](#):
>
> site.time is noted somewhere as deprecated for Jekyll.

@MichaelCurrin That’s news to me.  
There has not been any official deprecation of `{{ site.time }}`, to my knowledge.  
Could you point me to the source…?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 12:04pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/11 "2021-11-10T12:04:20Z")

</div>

> [@mcnesium](#):
>
> are you trying to suggest to turn event-related dom objects on and off client side? As I already stated, porting event handling from Jekyll collections to Javascript is not an option for now.

@mcnesium I’m aware that you’re not onboard with turning to JS. I was trying to convince you why you should reconsider that for optimal results.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 3:02pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/12 "2021-11-10T15:02:56Z")

</div>

Oh I can’t find the original source.

In my own notes I found that was how “now” used to be done but from my searching on cheatsheets and Jekyll docs and source in site.rb it looks to be in use and not deprecated

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/13 "2021-11-14T20:50:34Z")

</div>

> [@ashmaroli](#):
>
> The result is meant to be a _string_ and not _date_ or _time_ object.

BTW I remembered if you want to convert current time to an integer, you can add zero

```auto
{{ 'now' | date: '%s' |inspect }}

{{ 'now' | date: '%s' | plus: 0 | inspect }}

```

```auto
"1636922679"

1636922679

```

Though using `plus` to add 24 hours was already used above for tomorrow.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mcnesium](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/mcnesium/32/512_2.png) [@mcnesium](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/mcnesium)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 3:19pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/site-time-tomorrow/6658/14 "2021-11-16T15:19:07Z")

</div>

So I have learned:

- `event.date` is a date because Jekyll makes it one as part of being a collection item
- `site.time` is also a date, but after using the `| date: …` filter it is a string
- `where_exp` can not handle filters within its condition part – discussions on [SO](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56985344/jekyll-using-pipe-operator-in-where-exp) and [GH](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/issues/5302) did not end up with a solution yet, in turn they are sort of abandoned.

I figured I might want to make my `tomorrow` string variable be a Time object again, so I can compare it to `event.date`. So I went on to create a [filter plugin](https://jekyllrb.com/docs/plugins/your-first-plugin/#filters) which converts a string to a Time object in `_plugins/to_time.rb`:

```
module Jekyll
    module AssetFilter
        def to_time(date_string)
            DateTime.parse(date_string).to_time
        end
    end
end

Liquid::Template.register_filter(Jekyll::AssetFilter)

```

First I tried to just use `(date_string).to_time` but this gave me errors and so I first parse the string to a DateTime object and then use [this to\_time function](https://apidock.com/rails/Date/to_time) to make a Time object. Now it compares Time with Time and `jekyll build` does not complain anymore.

In the end I figured that I should not use `tomorrow` but `today` because I want the list of events to _include_ the now happening event _until_ midnight. So the assignment is are now as short as:

```
{% assign today = 'now' | date: '%F' | to_time %}

```

Using `now`, then using `%F` to just get the date part of it, then converting it back to Time, so `today` will be todays date at 0:00 in the morning.

For readability I replaced `>` with `>=` because that one second does not matter and it reads like “if event date is today or later”:

```
{% assign future_published_events = site.events | where_exp: "event", "event.date >= today and event.preview != true" %}

```

Thanks for everyone involved. I learned something today 🙂