Question

I am trying to use the |date filter and running into some problems. Here is the code that outputs an unformatted way:

{% for the_date in event.date_set.all %}
  <p>{{ the_date }}</p>
{% endfor %}

this outputs

<p>2010-10-31</p>
<p>2010-12-01</p>
...etc

When I change the code to

{% for the_date in event.date_set.all %}
  <p>{{ the_date|date:"F j, Y" }}</p>
{% endfor %}

it only outputs:

<p></p>
<p></p>
...etc

I tried changing the initial format of the dates to different things, but then I get a validation error trying to input the dates, and get a

ValidationError: [u'Enter a valid date in YYYY-MM-DD format.']

message. I am really stumped by this, could anyone help?

Answer 1

I’ll guess that your dates aren’t really dates, but are strings with formatted dates in them. The |date filter expects a datetime object, not a string.