Add a mapper for Updated date (changed)

Bump. An explanation of *Published date* as it relates to the **target** is in order, as it is for *URL* and *GUID*. None of those fields is actually a visible part of the node and the documentation does not make it clear that if a site builder wants to make use of those data then additional fields need to be added to feed items.

Once this information is clarified (please!), this issue should be made a feature request.

The mapper "Published date (created)" will map to "created", so that's one is already available. There isn't a mapper available for mapping to "Updated date (changed)". This would be a feature request.

This patch does it.

What is the reason above patch is failed? It gets applied on my machine.

The patch should be made against the Feeds repository, not against the Drupal repository.
I got these errors when trying to apply the patch:

error: sites/all/modules/contrib/feeds/feeds_import/feeds_import.feeds_importer_default.inc: No such file or directory
error: sites/all/modules/contrib/feeds/feeds_import/feeds_import.test: No such file or directory
error: sites/all/modules/contrib/feeds/plugins/FeedsNodeProcessor.inc: No such file or directory

This won't work anyway, since node_save() sets the changed time. The patch would have to manually set the updated time with a separate db call, after save() is called.

This sounds like a no-go.

This should pass now. Its working as expected.

Updating label in .test file causes failure in test? Have removed it.

Why are you changing the feeds_import feature?

Also, please address #10. I'm open to any clever ideas.

Is there any way to work around this issue, so that the "updated" date reflects the date that it was last updated prior to import? Otherwise, all forum topics include "Edited by: username on 08/17/2015 - 00:08 Reason: Created by FeedsNodeProcessor" Has anybody been able to solve this problem?

Here is a patch with a possible implementation:

1. When mapping happens, the value for "changed" is set to $node->feeds_changed instead of $node->changed, since the property "changed" will be overwritten upon a node save call.
2. Since the node module sets the "changed" property node before invoking the presave hooks, this property can be set in feeds_node_presave():
   

   // Update "changed" value if there was mapped to that.
   if (isset($node->feeds_changed)) {
     $node->changed = $node->feeds_changed;
   }
   

An other possible implementation is to add an extra database call - like twistor suggested in #10 - to FeedsNodeProcessor::entitySave(). The current implementation however, saves the need for that extra database call.
An alternative of setting $node->feeds_changed is to set a value on the $node->feeds_item object.

A test method called testChangedTarget() is added to the FeedsRSStoNodesTest test class to ensure mapping to "changed" works as expected. It's debatable if this test should perhaps be moved over to an other test class, since it uses a CSV as a source instead of a RSS feed as the class name suggests.

Tested: after selecting via UI, "changed" timestamp gets correctly mapped.

Could we do the $node->feeds_item change? It's not a huge deal, but it lowers the risk of conflicting with another attribute named feeds_chagned. I know feeds is our namespace, but it seems safer to me.

Other than that, this is exactly the clever solution I was hoping for, awesome.

The value for the node's "changed" property is now temporary stored on $node->feeds_item->node_changed. I named the property on the feeds_item object "node_changed" to avoid eventually future collisions, should the feeds_item table ever get a "changed" column. And also to make it clear that the value is meant to be set on the node object.

I've applied the patch, and can now see 'Modified date' in addition to 'Published date' but when I import data into this field the 'Updated date' on my node is not being set.

Question - is the 'Modified date' supposed to be the same thing as the 'Updated date'? If so, can we please change the names to match?

If not, let's please change the title of this issue :)

edit: deleted duplicate post.

Good suggestion, jenlampton. I've changed the label from 'Modified date' to 'Updated date', since Views also uses this label for the same thing. Patch is also a reroll.

Note that when a node is resaved after the import, the value set by Feeds for 'Updated date' will be lost. The node module always sets this value to the current time when a node is saved, regardless if this happened programmatically or by an user's action.

If this patch still passes tests, I think this is ready.

+++ b/plugins/FeedsNodeProcessor.inc
@@ -239,6 +239,9 @@ class FeedsNodeProcessor extends FeedsProcessor {
+      case 'changed':
+        $target_node->feeds_item->node_changed = feeds_to_unixtime($value, REQUEST_TIME);
+        break;

Can we get a comment here saying that this value will be set in feeds_node_presave()?

Good suggestion, twistor. I added a comment to the above specified code.

Committed #38. Thanks all!