teammates [#8557] Standardize locale

Fixes #8557

OS: macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 arm64
Host: MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021)
Locale: en_GB.UTF-8, de_DE.UTF-8

When running tests locally, some tests fail because of differences in locale, like teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest.testGetMidnightAdjustedInstantBasedOnZone. Even though this might not be a problem when running tests as part of a workflow, it might cause confusion to some users who are running tests locally and encountering errors.

Testing on en_GB.UTF-8:

org.gradle.internal.serialize.PlaceholderAssertionError: expected: <Sun, 29 Nov 2015, 11:59 PM UTC> but was: <Sun, 29 Nov 2015, 11:59 pm UTC>

Testing on de_DE.UTF-8:

org.gradle.internal.serialize.PlaceholderAssertionError: expected: <Sun, 29 Nov 2015, 11:59 PM UTC> but was: <So., 29 Nov. 2015, 11:59 PM UTC>

For me, 5 tests were failing locally, so I ran this command to run the 5 tests which were failing.

./gradlew unitTests \ 
    --tests "teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest.testFormatDateTimeForDisplay" \
    --tests "teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest.testGetMidnightAdjustedInstantBasedOnZone" \
    --tests "teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest.testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails" \
    --tests "teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest.testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails_testSanitization" \
    --tests "teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest.testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails_testUsersWithDeadlineExtensions"

Outline of Solution I updated teammates/common/util/TimeHelper::formatInstant to use the US locale when generating dates, as seen below:

        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter
                .ofPattern(processedPattern)
                .withLocale(Locale.US);

This standardises the locale used in the app to use a US locale, so that the tests which are related to datetime formatting can pass locally.

After making this change, local tests pass on both de_DE.UTF-8 and en_GB.UTF-8.

I have yet to test this on Linux, which was what was reported in the referenced issue, but I believe that the issues that we are facing are somewhat related.

Aug 06 '24 07:08 itstrueitstrueitsrealitsreal

@itstrueitstrueitsrealitsreal Good solution, is there anyway you could test it on an linux enviroment before we merge?

Aug 07 '24 12:08 mingyuanc

@mingyuanc I'll get it tested by EOD.

Aug 07 '24 12:08 itstrueitstrueitsrealitsreal

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Host: 20L8SA2N16 (ThinkPad T480s)
Locale: de_DE.UTF-8

Tests failed before changes:

component-tests > component-tests > teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest > testGetMidnightAdjustedInstantBasedOnZone FAILED
component-tests > component-tests > teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest > testFormatDateTimeForDisplay FAILED
component-tests > component-tests > teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest > testEndOfYearDates FAILED
component-tests > component-tests > teammates.common.datatransfer.questions.FeedbackNumericalScaleQuestionDetailsTest > tesValidateResponseDetails FAILED
component-tests > component-tests > teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest > testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails_testUsersWithDeadlineExtensions FAILED
component-tests > component-tests > teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest > testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails_testUsersWithDeadlineExtensions FAILED
component-tests > component-tests > teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest > testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails_testSanitization FAILED

Test failed after changes:

org.gradle.internal.serialize.PlaceholderAssertionError: expected: <5.1 is out of the range for Numerical-scale question.(min=3, max=5)> but was: <5,1 is out of the range for Numerical-scale question.(min=3, max=5)>
        at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertionFailureBuilder.build(AssertionFailureBuilder.java:151)
        at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertionFailureBuilder.buildAndThrow(AssertionFailureBuilder.java:132)
        at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertEquals.failNotEqual(AssertEquals.java:197)
        at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertEquals.assertEquals(AssertEquals.java:182)
        at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertEquals.assertEquals(AssertEquals.java:177)
        at org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals(Assertions.java:1145)
        at teammates.test.BaseTestCase.assertEquals(BaseTestCase.java:321)
        at teammates.common.datatransfer.questions.FeedbackNumericalScaleQuestionDetailsTest.tesValidateResponseDetails(FeedbackNumericalScaleQuestionDetailsTest.java:77)
        ...

component-tests > component-tests > teammates.common.datatransfer.questions.FeedbackNumericalScaleQuestionDetailsTest > tesValidateResponseDetails FAILED
    org.opentest4j.AssertionFailedError at FeedbackNumericalScaleQuestionDetailsTest.java:77

This seems to be a result of the DecimalFormat class using , as a delimiter in the locale I set my machine to, so I added a workaround where I used java.text.DecimalFormatSymbols::setDecimalSeparator to set the delimiter to . in StringHelper::toDecimalFormatString, as follows:

    /**
     * Converts a double value between 0 and 1 to 3dp-string.
     */
    public static String toDecimalFormatString(double doubleVal) {
        DecimalFormatSymbols syms = new DecimalFormatSymbols();
        syms.setDecimalSeparator('.');
        DecimalFormat df = new DecimalFormat("0.###", syms);
        return df.format(doubleVal);
    }

After making these changes, I changed my locale to:

en_US.UTF-8
en_SG.UTF-8

and ran the tests again, and they passed on all 3 locales.

For convenience, here's the command to run the 7 tests:

 ./gradlew unitTests --tests "teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest.testGetMidnightAdjustedInstantBasedOnZone" \
    --tests "teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest.testFormatDateTimeForDisplay" \
    --tests "teammates.common.util.TimeHelperTest.testEndOfYearDates" \
    --tests "teammates.common.datatransfer.questions.FeedbackNumericalScaleQuestionDetailsTest.tesValidateResponseDetails" \
    --tests "teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest.testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails_testUsersWithDeadlineExtensions" \
    --tests "teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest.testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails_testUsersWithDeadlineExtensions" \
    --tests "teammates.logic.api.EmailGeneratorTest.testGenerateFeedbackSessionEmails_testSanitization" \

Aug 07 '24 17:08 itstrueitstrueitsrealitsreal

Folks, This PR seems to be stalling (no activities for the past 7 days). :snail: :cry: Hope someone can get it to move forward again soon...

Aug 15 '24 16:08 nusoss-bot

Folks, This PR seems to be stalling (no activities for the past 7 days). :snail: :cry: Hope someone can get it to move forward again soon...

Aug 23 '24 13:08 nusoss-bot

Folks, This PR seems to be stalling (no activities for the past 9 days). :snail: :cry: Hope someone can get it to move forward again soon...

Sep 02 '24 03:09 nusoss-bot

Hey, wanted to ask about the 'Merging is blocked' warning I've been getting on my PRs (this one, #13165 and #13166.) I manually merged master into these branches, and saw this error, and I tried reverting the merge on #13165, but the error did not go away. I'm aware that test migration is currently in progress. How should I proceed?

Feb 11 '25 17:02 itstrueitstrueitsrealitsreal

Hi @itstrueitstrueitsrealitsreal, #13165 is merged! #13166 is still pending approval, we will get it approved soon!

The "Merging is blocked" warning is usually from either failing tests or the PR not being approved.

Feb 16 '25 02:02 jasonqiu212

I see, was concerned because I saw this on my UI. Screenshot 2025-02-16 at 5 27 40 PM

But it seems like you have the permissions to resolve that, so thanks for your help!

Feb 16 '25 09:02 itstrueitstrueitsrealitsreal