Problem with RSS feed events in the future

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MartinW
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Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 6:01 pm

Problem with RSS feed events in the future

Post by MartinW »

I wrote some code to make an XML file out of my databases for RSS feeds. All my feeds list events that will occur in the future (and they get deleted from the feed as soon as the events occur). I originally decided to set the pubdate to the day and time the event will occur, which again is in the future. The problem I found was that I believe for the events that are beyond the date for daylight savings time that Internet Explorer (using its built-in RSS feed reader) adjusts the time it displays, I'm guessing to account for daylight savings, so that the time is no longer correct (they are now listed one hour earlier than they should be). This did not occur in any other browser I tested it with (Firefox, Safari, and Opera, all the latest versions for Windows). So to test it out, I actually adjusted the times myself to counteract IE's changes, and it worked for IE, but then the other browsers showed the wrong time. I also forced the times to EST and also GMT, and I still had the same problem. Is there a way to avoid this problem? As a compromise, I decided to remove the pubdate altogether, just so people don't get confused when they see the time of the event. Is there anything wrong with not including the pubdate element at all, and is it safe to set pubdate to the future (eg. will other reader programs get confused)? I do list the date and time in the description element, but I would also like to set pubdate to the date and time of the event, just because I think it would be easier for users to figure out the date and time based on the pubdate.

Thanks,
Martin
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