[Reader] Fix tag posts list paging

[RenanLukas]

Fixes #19879

We were sorting the tag related blog posts comparing date_published as a string instead of a date. This was causing paging not to work properly.

I've replaced ...ORDER BY date_published... with ...ORDER BY datetime(date_published)... in our query so the posts are sorted as dates correctly.

Before

SELECT <columns> FROM tbl_posts WHERE tag_name=? AND tag_type=? ORDER BY date_published DESC

Screen.Recording.2024-01-03.at.8.02.56.PM.mov

After

SELECT <columns> FROM tbl_posts WHERE tag_name=? AND tag_type=? ORDER BY datetime(date_published) DESC

Screen.Recording.2024-01-03.at.7.09.23.PM.mov

---

To Test:

Please test this change with different SQLite versions. Also compare the results with web to make sure now we're displaying the same results using the same order.

• Install JP and sign-in
• Open "Reader"
• Select a tag
• Start scrolling: it will stop loading new posts at some point, even though there are many more (compare with web)

Another way to test is opening the tag posts list from blogging prompts card:

• Install JP and sign-in
• Open "My Site"
• Tap on "View all responses" in blogging prompts card
• Start scrolling: it will stop loading new posts at some point, even though there are many more (compare with web)

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Regression Notes

1. Potential unintended areas of impact

   • SQLite function datetime(...) might not available in every version?

2. What I did to test those areas of impact (or what existing automated tests I relied on)

   • Manual testing

3. What automated tests I added (or what prevented me from doing so)

   --

---

PR Submission Checklist:

• I have completed the Regression Notes.
• I have considered adding accessibility improvements for my changes.
• I have considered if this change warrants user-facing release notes and have added them to RELEASE-NOTES.txt if necessary.

---

UI Changes Testing Checklist:

• Portrait and landscape orientations.
• Light and dark modes.
• Fonts: Larger, smaller and bold text.
• High contrast.
• Talkback.
• Languages with large words or with letters/accents not frequently used in English.
• Right-to-left languages. (Even if translation isn’t complete, formatting should still respect the right-to-left layout)
• Large and small screen sizes. (Tablet and smaller phones)
• Multi-tasking: Split screen and Pop-up view. (Android 10 or higher)

[RenanLukas]

There are other places where we might also be comparing the strings instead of dates (example). Might be worth to investigate them when we can.

[RenanLukas]

This might solve the inserted items animation issue that made us revert the updated fetched tag posts limit. I'm submitting a PR with that change again since the performance gain was meaningful.

You might still see items being moved only the first time it loads if you already had posts for that tag in the local database.

[wpmobilebot]

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	App Name	Jetpack
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	Commit	abc64da
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[wpmobilebot]

📲 You can test the changes from this Pull Request in WordPress by scanning the QR code below to install the corresponding build.

	App Name	WordPress
	Flavor	Jalapeno
	Build Type	Debug
	Version	pr19881-abc64da
	Commit	abc64da
	Direct Download	wordpress-prototype-build-pr19881-abc64da.apk

Note: Google Login is not supported on these builds.

[thomashorta]

Thanks for this PR, this issue has been happening to several tags and feeds and it looks like you found one of the main root causes! 🙇🏼

I added a few suggestions regarding other date fields and other queries using sorting by date, maybe we want to fix them too.

Just a note: it's not possible to test this specific fix with the "View all responses" from Blogging Prompts after syncing this branch with trunk, since trunk already had a fix for the prompts order issue (#19730) that solved it by making the getSortColumnForTag function use the date_tagged column (which seems to be normalized in terms of timezone).

[thomashorta]

❤️ So it seems like the issue is that we store this date as a string but it has format like "2024-01-08T14:42:19+00:00", and not all posts have the same timezone, causing the order to be inconsistent since the backend actually treats the field as a date. This is a really nice catch, thanks!

💡 Also, since this is the issue, I think it makes sense to add datetime around the other date-related cases above (lines 746, 748, and 752), since they would suffer the same problem.

💡 Do you think it also makes sense to use the datetime function on other queries in this file that use a date as order clause? (here, here, here, here, and here)

[RenanLukas]

Thanks for the review, @thomashorta !

💡 Also, since this is the issue, I think it makes sense to add datetime around the other date-related cases above (lines 746, 748, and 752), since they would suffer the same problem.

💡 Do you think it also makes sense to use the datetime function on other queries in this file that use a date as order clause? (here, here, here, here, and here)

I agree 100%, but this also means we'd have to test every single scenario that relies on the logic you've mentioned in this same PR, right? Since this already solves the original tag post list issue, does it make sense to create a separate issue for the other places where we can thoroughly investigate and test the new changes?

[thomashorta]

That makes sense, let's make the datetime change for the other places in a different PR then.

[RenanLukas]

Issue created.

[dangermattic]

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