displaying updated time in aggregator block

Question

I'm trying to add a line showing the last updated time for my RSS aggregator feed block (essentially the checked timestamp field from the aggregator_feed in a formatted manner).

I'm not able to find a preprocess function that lets me get this value.. the closest i got was implementing

function mm_theme2_aggregator_block_item($item, $feed = 0) {

  if($item->fid) {
    $fetch_modified_time = "SELECT `checked` FROM {aggregator_feed} WHERE `fid` = %d";
     $feed_last_modified_time = db_result(db_query($fetch_modified_time, $item->fid));
    }
    $last_modified = 'Last Modified time is ' . date('D M d h:i:s T Y', $feed_last_modified_time);
  $output .= '<a class="rssContent" href="'. check_url($item->link) .'" target="_blank">'. check_plain($item->title) ."</a>\n";
  return $output;
}

where i'm not sure how to pass on this value to my $block or to $variables. Also this method iterates for each feed item and it'd be unwise to get the same value executed multiple times.

I'm pretty certain there's a drupal based way to get what i desire and am missing something.

Any help/support on this would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I implemented the above requested functionality by using a template_preprocess_block and adding the fetched variable to the $variables['block']. Code for the same as below:

    function my_theme_preprocess_block (&$variables) {
      // fetch last updated time for feed 1 only other feeds don't need this value
      if (($variables['block']->module == 'aggregator') && ($variables['block']->delta == 'feed-1')) {
        $last_updated_timestamp = db_result(db_query("SELECT `checked` FROM {aggregator_feed} WHERE `fid` = 1"));
        if (!empty($last_updated_timestamp)) {
          $variables['block']->last_updated_time = 'Last updated on ' . date('D M d g:i:s T Y', $last_updated_timestamp);
        }
      }
}

but this seems to look bad as i'm hardcoding my feed id in the query besides the fact that i'm using a query in template.php but it works.

Leaving this question hoping someone could top with a better solution.