Contrib.social

Set Google's date field data_type to string

Open on Drupal.org →
Created on 16 July 2025, 3 months ago

Problem/Motivation

Google provides a few date related fields, such as yearMonth and date. The data "yearMonth" is a string, preserving the correct formatting of YYYYMM.

Google claims its "date" field formats it as YYYYMMDD, however due to the data_type being "date", Drupal thinks it's a timestamp and tries to format it as a date, resulting in an incorrect value.

Steps to reproduce

Add the "date" field to a view and observe.

Proposed resolution

Set the data_type for the date field to "string".

There may be other ramifications so I won't provide an MR yet while I test it more thoroughly. To do this, I've added a single line to the following function in google_analytics_reports:

function google_analytics_reports_get_fields() {
  $fields = &drupal_static(__FUNCTION__);
  // @todo fetch data from cache.
  if (!isset($fields)) {
    $fields = \Drupal::database()
      ->select('google_analytics_reports_fields', 'g')
      ->fields('g')
      ->execute()
      ->fetchAllAssoc('gaid');
  }
  $fields['date']->data_type = 'string';

  return $fields;
}

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API changes

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Data model changes

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Release notes snippet

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📌 Task
Status

Active

Version

4.0

Component

Reports module

Created by

🇦🇺Australia imclean Tasmania

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Comments & Activities

  • Issue created by @imclean
  • Comment 3 months ago →
    🇦🇺Australia imclean Tasmania
  • Comment 3 months ago →
    🇦🇺Australia imclean Tasmania
  • Comment 3 months ago →
    🇺🇦Ukraine gilmord 🇺🇦Ukraine

    Maybe better alter it on the step of storing field data to the fields table?

    while there is no MR/patch this works:

    /**
 * Implements hook_google_analytics_reports_field_import().
 */
function YOUR_MODULE_google_analytics_reports_field_import_alter(array &$field) {
  if ($field['gaid'] === 'date') {
    $field['data_type'] = 'string';
  }
}
  • Comment about 2 months ago →
    🇦🇺Australia imclean Tasmania

    A another approach is to convert the format to a timestamp and leave the data_type as it is. This allows you to select the date display format within the view.

    /**
 * Implements hook_views_post_execute().
 * 
 * @param ViewExecutable $view
 */
function MY_MODULE_views_post_execute(ViewExecutable $view) {
  if ($view->id() === 'VIEW_ID' ) {
    foreach ($view->result as &$result) {
      $result->date = strtotime($result->date);
    }    
  }
}
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