Expired entry URL redirect

Question

Apologies... I am more end user than developer so I understand just enough coding to be dangerous! :)

I found a question and answer about redirecting an expired URL to another page, and using that code worked... sort of. Navigating to an expired entry's URL did take me to the index page I wanted it to redirect me to while unexpired entries loaded normally, but my problem is with entries that have no expiration date entered because they are open indefinitely. How do I fix it so that entries with no exp. date set still load while being able to redirect expired ones?

Here's what I have...

{exp:channel:entries channel="{channel_name}" status="open"}

    {if expiration_date < current_time}{redirect="/resources/jobs"}{/if}

    {!-- page content --}

    ...             

{/exp:channel:entries}

Answer 1

Well, you have a conditional that must be satisfied in order to achieve your redirect. In order to accommodate your requirements, you must address every condition and you are not (though you may think you are!).

You see, if you don't set an expiration date, that value should output as empty. Think empty... zero... ExpressionEngine is looking at that conditional like this (when there is no {expiration_date} set)..

{if 0 < current_time}

Well, this is always going to be true, so you aren't covering this condition properly. One way to cover this condition is to first make sure that {expiration_date} is set! This is one way to go about it:

{if expiration_date && expiration_date < current_time}

    {!-- Here, we first ask if `expiration_date` is set. If it is,
      -- we move on to check if the expiration date is less than our 
      -- current time. If these two things are true, this gets executed!
      --}

    {redirect="/resources/jobs"}

{/if}