Validate data format strings on application start

alexbudarov commented 3 years ago

Often users modify data format strings in such a way that backoffice-ui components can't use them.

But developer gets a warning very late in the running application - only when the string is used by the component (e.g. by dateField).

Example project attached. moifr.zip

I modified:

dateTimeFormat=dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss z

Launch application
The table in the user browser works OK with this format.
But dateField in user editor - can't work with it and throws obscure exception:

Caused by: java.time.DateTimeException: Unable to extract value: class java.time.LocalTime
    at java.time.format.DateTimePrintContext.getValue(DateTimePrintContext.java:282) ~[na:1.8.0_282]
    at java.time.format.DateTimeFormatterBuilder$ZoneTextPrinterParser.format(DateTimeFormatterBuilder.java:3693) ~[na:1.8.0_282]
    at java.time.format.DateTimeFormatterBuilder$CompositePrinterParser.format(DateTimeFormatterBuilder.java:2190) ~[na:1.8.0_282]
    at java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter.formatTo(DateTimeFormatter.java:1746) ~[na:1.8.0_282]
    at java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter.format(DateTimeFormatter.java:1720) ~[na:1.8.0_282]
    at java.time.LocalTime.format(LocalTime.java:1413) ~[na:1.8.0_282]
    at io.jmix.ui.widget.JmixTimeField.formatValue(JmixTimeField.java:218) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.ui.widget.JmixTimeField.doSetValue(JmixTimeField.java:99) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.ui.widget.JmixTimeField.doSetValue(JmixTimeField.java:39) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at com.vaadin.ui.AbstractField.setValue(AbstractField.java:140) ~[vaadin-server-8.9.2-6-jmix.jar:8.9.2-6-jmix]
    at io.jmix.ui.widget.JmixTimeField.setValue(JmixTimeField.java:92) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.ui.widget.JmixTimeField.setValue(JmixTimeField.java:39) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at com.vaadin.ui.AbstractField.setValue(AbstractField.java:53) ~[vaadin-server-8.9.2-6-jmix.jar:8.9.2-6-jmix]
    at io.jmix.ui.widget.JmixTimeFieldWrapper.setValueToPresentation(JmixTimeFieldWrapper.java:228) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.ui.widget.JmixTimeFieldWrapper.doSetValue(JmixTimeFieldWrapper.java:151) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.ui.widget.JmixTimeFieldWrapper.doSetValue(JmixTimeFieldWrapper.java:36) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at com.vaadin.ui.AbstractField.setValue(AbstractField.java:140) ~[vaadin-server-8.9.2-6-jmix.jar:8.9.2-6-jmix]
    at com.vaadin.ui.AbstractField.setValue(AbstractField.java:53) ~[vaadin-server-8.9.2-6-jmix.jar:8.9.2-6-jmix]
    at io.jmix.ui.component.impl.DateFieldImpl.setValueToPresentation(DateFieldImpl.java:403) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.ui.component.impl.DateFieldImpl.setValueToPresentation(DateFieldImpl.java:60) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.ui.component.impl.AbstractViewComponent.setValue(AbstractViewComponent.java:108) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.ui.component.data.value.ValueBinder$ValueBindingImpl.valueSourceStateChanged(ValueBinder.java:269) ~[jmix-ui-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]
    at io.jmix.core.common.event.EventHub.publish(EventHub.java:170) ~[jmix-core-0.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:na]

So we have two problems:

late feedback about wrong format strings
obscure error message from the UI component

Suggestion Validate data format strings on project start. What to check:

that format string is at least parseable
that it doesn't contain some bad symbols that break UI components (mostly date fields, etc). If datatype format string is wrong, abort system start and print error message. Include into the message: locale, string key, string value.

If such formats as above are acceptable - then we should improve DateField to consume formats as presented above.

alexbudarov commented 3 years ago

Example forum topics with invalid strings:

https://www.cuba-platform.com/discuss/t/timefield-datetimeparseexception-datatype-format-strings-bug/13943
```
timeFormat = hh:mm a
DateTimeParseException: Text ‘02:03 A’ could not be parsed at index 6
```

https://www.cuba-platform.com/discuss/t/datetime-patterns/10168

dateTimeFormat = MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm aa
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Too many pattern letters: a

https://www.cuba-platform.ru/discuss/t/oshibka-entity-inspector-dlya-sushhnosti-s-date/3797
```
dateTimeFormat=yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm, EE
```

alexbudarov commented 3 years ago

When we have logic for runtime validation, we will be able to include it to Studio also.

jmix-framework / jmix

Validate data format strings on application start #88