GlideDateTime does not support Locale specific day names, months or their abbreviations - Known Error

GlideDateTime does not support Locale specific day names, months or their abbreviations Description The issue is with parsing Locale specific day or month names, using 'EEE' or 'MMMM' in the date format string. This works for English day or month names but fails, for example, for a user who's language/county is French/France and is trying to use their locale specific names.

For example trying to parse 'Mar' (Mardi = Tuesday) fails, but 'Tue' succeeds. Similarly Août fails and August succeeds.

This shows that the 'EEE' or 'MMMM' is recognised, but only when the Locale is English based.

Note that dates shown through the UI display the English abbreviations not French, so the format string is being used successfully to generate the display values.

The Date Picker has been localised. See the attached image which shows both these points.

The documentation for date / time fields is not explicit about which format strings are supported: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=r_FormatDateAndTimeFields.html&version=latest

It has a table that lists formats for Year, Month and Day of Month but states that the same 'format' strings as the java.text.SimpleDateFormat class can be used, with minor exceptions. Those exceptions are not specified.

Steps to Reproduce

Ensure the instance has the French i18n plugin activated. Add a Choice to sys_user.date_format with the label & value "EEE MM/dd/yyyy". Configure a user's (e.g Fred Luddy) [sys_user] record to have France as the country and the date format set to the new format mask. Run the attached dateformat_testcase.js from sys.scripts.do

The output is shown below, note that with a French locale the attempts to parse a French day name, and a French month name both report Exceptions with "Unparseable date":

*** Script: Session Language: fr *** Script: Session Timezone: Europe/Paris *** Script: Session Date/Time Format: EEE MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss *** Script: Calendar: java.util.GregorianCalendar[time=?,areFieldsSet=false,areAllFieldsSet=false,lenient=true,zone=sun.util.calendar.ZoneInfo[id="Europe/Paris",offset=3600000,dstSavings=3600000,useDaylight=true,transitions=184,lastRule=java.util.SimpleTimeZone[id=Europe/Paris,offset=3600000,dstSavings=3600000,useDaylight=true,startYear=0,startMode=2,startMonth=2,startDay=-1,startDayOfWeek=1,startTime=3600000,startTimeMode=2,endMode=2,endMonth=9,endDay=-1,endDayOfWeek=1,endTime=3600000,endTimeMode=2]],firstDayOfWeek=1,minimalDaysInFirstWeek=1,ERA=?,YEAR=2017,MONTH=7,WEEK_OF_YEAR=?,WEEK_OF_MONTH=?,DAY_OF_MONTH=1,DAY_OF_YEAR=?,DAY_OF_WEEK=?,DAY_OF_WEEK_IN_MONTH=?,AM_PM=?,HOUR=?,HOUR_OF_DAY=0,MINUTE=54,SECOND=13,MILLISECOND=?,ZONE_OFFSET=?,DST_OFFSET=?] *** Script: *** Script: Try to set a GlideDateTime using the locale abbreviation for the name of the day for a time format string incorporating "EEE" *** Script: Trying to set "Mar 08/01/2017 09:00:00" as display value using format "EEE MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss" (Mar is abbreviation for Mardi (Tuesday)) *** Script: Exception caught: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unparseable date: "Mar 08/01/2017 09:00:00" *** Script: *** Script: Try to set a GlideDateTime using the English abbreviation for the name of the day for a time format string incorporating "EEE" *** Script: Trying to set "Tue 08/01/2017 09:00:00" as display value using format "EEE MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss" (Tue should be invalid as its an English abbreviation, not French *** Script: Tue 08/01/2017 09:00:00 *** Script: *** Script: Try to set a GlideDateTime using the locale specific name of a month for a time format string incorporating "MMMM" *** Script: Trying to set "01/Août/2017 09:00:00" as display value using format "dd/MMMM/yyyy HH:mm:ss" (Août is August) *** Script: Exception caught: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unparseable date: "01/Août/2017 09:00:00" *** Script: *** Script: Try to set a GlideDateTime using the English specific name of a month for a time format string incorporating "MMMM" *** Script: Trying to set "01/August/2017 09:00:00" as display value using format "dd/MMMM/yyyy HH:mm:ss" (August should be invalid as its English, not French *** Script: 01/August/2017 09:00:00 Workaround The only workaround is to remove the format strings "MMMM" or "EEE" from the date format.

This behavior could not be reproduced in an out of box instances, possibly due to a customization or a missed upgrade on a particular instance, or a not fully known or documented design.

If you are experiencing this problem, please contact ServiceNow Technical Support.