Article Dates
There are 8 date fields on each article
field_article_created
field_article_display_date
field_article_publish
field_article_un_publish
field_article_updated
field_article_vanity_date
created
changed
Some rules for the CMS
CMS !!NEVER!! sets a value for field_article_created, field_article_publish, created or changed, this means do not send the data back to the REST API at all.
CMS only occasionally sets field_article_updated, this would be if you want to set it to be a date that is not now, otherwise do not send it at all.
You don't need to set field_article_display_date unless you are scheduling it so that you want the date to be different to Now.
You can not set field_article_display_date to null, it will be replaced by Now.
field_article_un_publish & field_article_vanity_date are not required, but you can set them if you need to.
Some more info below about specific fields
field_article_created
field_article_created maps to firstCreated
The time the article is first saved, even if it is draft or not published
field_article_display_date
field_article_display_date maps to publish
The default display date for the front end, this is also used to set the time that it may be published from.
Setting a display date in the future will un-publish that article until that time
This is the date that is used for all ordering of feeds and section pages etc
field_article_publish
field_article_publish maps to firstPublished
The first time the article was set to be published (Saved with status = 1)
this is when the article was first published to the web
field_article_un_publish
field_article_un_publish maps to unPublish
You can set a time that the article becomes unavailable via the web, this is it.
Setting this in the past also makes the article unavailable to the web.
If you want an article to be published until a specific time, this is the place to put that time.
field_article_updated
field_article_updated maps to updated
The last time the article was saved as long as it wasn't a silent update.
this is used by the front end, especially for Live-blogs etc
field_article_vanity_date
field_article_vanity_date maps to overrideDate
This can be used to override the display date on the WEB.
It is relatively new and rarely used
created
Not editable by the CMS or FLOW
The time the entity was created in the API
changed
Not editable by the CMS or FLOW
The time the entity was last edited/saved in the API