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hi there, i just viewed the source output of my joomla page, and noticed this...

what is this text, and how do I get rid of it (i am parsing the output and i dont want this text)

That's actually an XML comment. The "" ends it. Everything between should be ignored. You'll see this sort of thing from time to time in generated HTML. It's probably some sort of debug code.

I have also noticed the number increases all the time. It must be some type of timestamp? or counter?

I remember seeing a post that explained it. I will look.

Don't know what it's used for, but the number is a UNIX Timestamp. This is a time representation that is the number of seconds since 1970. A converter can be found here.

Oh. Thanks for that. I was wondering. Is it safe to remove? If so how do I do it?

I need to know too how to remove it... any ideas?

You'll need to look at the code of the module, template, or whatever it is you are working on and search for the "<--". There is going to be a line of code that either echoes that string or appends it to a variable, followed by a time string and the "-->" ending part. Just delete any lines of code involved in outputting that string and you should be fine.

This code isn't in templates or modules/plugins/components. Its somewhere in the core.

So, do a recursive grep for it. It should be safe to remove.

Look almost at the end of main Joomla index.php file

// loads template file
if ( !file_exists( $mosConfig_absolute_path .'/templates/'. $cur_template .'/index.php' ) ) {
echo _TEMPLATE_WARN . $cur_template;
} else {
require_once( $mosConfig_absolute_path .'/templates/'. $cur_template .'/index.php' );
echo '';
}

That's the code that generates the timestamp.

you rock GMassi!!!! Thanks!!!

do you just remove this line?....

echo '';


and nothing else?
any reason not to remove it?

I don't know if there's a reason that you need to keep it but I must say I don't think there's any reason to remove it.

But if you want to remove it I'd remove the whole else block



Note you have to keep the closing } located in front of the else keyword.

i'm writing code to utilise that bit of information in future. if you remove it your site will be unique and would not be able to use the component i haven't made  

Puckeye wrote:I don't know if there's a reason that you need to keep it but I must say I don't think there's any reason to remove it.

But if you want to remove it I'd remove the whole else block

Code: Select all

else {
   require_once( $mosConfig_absolute_path .'/templates/'. $cur_template .'/index.php' );
   echo '<!-- '. time() .' -->';
}

Note you have to keep the closing } located in front of the else keyword.

i removed that you said, and the site disappeared, just blank. --so i put it back...

Personally, I do not think it hurts anything to leave it in. If you use the "Cache" setting withing Joomla, you can use that timestamp to know if you are looking at a cached version.

If you hit "refresh", the timestamp should change. If it does not change, then you know that you are looking at a cached version of that page.

I'm sure there are other reasons, but that is what I use it for.

also the timestamp, since it is there can be used to measure time delays between user request and response, which is extremely useful to manage users coming from various types of links. so it is a useful subtle feature.

This debug code has been removed from the SVN (latest development version) of Joomla.

Dean