exe packaged by pkg doesn't follow Date().toLocaleDateString() locale parameter

[KringeKactus]

What version of pkg are you using?

5.8.0

What version of Node.js are you using?

18.4.0 and 10.19.0

What operating system are you using?

Windows and ubuntu 20.04

What CPU architecture are you using?

x86_64 and arm64

What Node versions, OSs and CPU architectures are you building for?

node18-win-x64 and node10-linux-arm64

Describe the Bug

exe and linux binary files packaged by pkg seem to not work properly with Date().toLocaleDateString() code in the .js file. More specifically, the packaged executables default the locales parameter in .toLocaleDateString(locales, options) to en-US. More can be read about this method here: [(https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date/toLocaleDateString)]

Expected Behavior

Passing a date through the .toLocaleDateString(locales) method should return a date that is formatted according to the locales parameter. For eg. console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('en-US')); should print the date in month-day-year order console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('en-GB')); should print the date in day-month-year order console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('ko-KR')); should print the date in year-month-day order

To Reproduce

1. make a js file with the following code const date = new Date('2022-08-14').toLocaleDateString('ko-KR', { day: 'numeric', month: 'short', year: 'numeric' }) console.log(date) 'ko-KR' can be changed to other locales such as 'en-GB'.

2. pkg the js file into an executable and run the executable

[jeeankowalski]

Same occurs here. Any solution for that?

[TBG-FR]

I tried with https://www.npmjs.com/package/full-icu , with no luck

Before PKG

root@f0e3a6143f75:/app# node index.js
{
  nodever: '14.19.1',
  node_maj: '14',
  node_min: '19',
  icu_small: false,
  icuver: '70.1',
  icumaj: '70',
  icuend: 'l',
  icupkg: 'icu4c-data@70l',
  icudat: 'icudt70l.dat',
  haveDat: [Function: haveDat],
  datPath: [Function: datPath]
}
2022년 8월 14일
14 août 2022

After PKG

root@f0e3a6143f75:/app# ./app.bin
{
  nodever: '14.20.0',
  node_maj: '14',
  node_min: '20',
  icu_small: true,
  icuver: '70.1',
  icumaj: '70',
  icuend: 'l',
  icupkg: 'icu4c-data@70l',
  icudat: 'icudt70l.dat',
  haveDat: [Function: haveDat],
  datPath: [Function: datPath]
}
Aug 14, 2022
Aug 14, 2022

Tried with pkg --output app.bin --target node14-linux-x64 index.js and NODE_ICU_DATA=node_modules/full-icu pkg --output app.bin --target node14-linux-x64 index.js

#1749 #1570 #1563

[TBG-FR]

Alright I finally managed to do it. Here's a small working tutorial, that you'll only need to adapt to your usage.

Goal

Use pkg to build a node app (target: node14-linux-x64) with ICU, to fix dates displaying for example.

Steps

1. Run a node docker with the same version as your goal

docker run -it --rm node:14.20.0 /bin/bash

2. Create a demo app

mkdir app && cd app
npm init
touch index.js
npm install full-icu

4. Add code to that demo app

const icu = require('full-icu');
console.log(icu);
try { console.log(icu.datPath()); } catch (ex) { console.log(ex.message); }

const dateKO = new Date('2022-08-14').toLocaleDateString('ko-KR', { day: 'numeric', month: 'short', year: 'numeric' });
console.log(dateKO);

const dateFR = new Date('2022-08-14').toLocaleDateString('fr-FR', { day: 'numeric', month: 'short', year: 'numeric' });
console.log(dateFR);

5. Run the app to get ICU information

node index.js

{
  nodever: '14.20.0',
  node_maj: '14',
  node_min: '20',
  icu_small: false,
  icuver: '70.1',
  icumaj: '70',
  icuend: 'l',
  icupkg: 'icu4c-data@70l',
  icudat: 'icudt70l.dat',
  haveDat: [Function: haveDat],
  datPath: [Function: datPath]
}
ENOENT: no such file or directory, lstat '/app/node_modules/full-icu/icudt70l.dat'
2022년 8월 14일
14 août 2022

5. As you can see here, the node docker is built with full ICU (icu_small: false), and display foreign dates correctly. That's great, but that also mean that full-icu won't download any more files to fix small-icu... We'll have to do it manually !

6. Now you know that you need icudt70l.dat file, at the location /app/node_modules/full-icu/icudt70l.dat, so head over https://icu.unicode.org/download and select the right version (ICU 70 - ICU4C 70.1). On that version page you'll find the GitHub release page. You need to download the file that matches the version you need, here it's https://icu4c-70_1-data-bin-l.zip

7. Let's download that file and unzip it in the needed location

cd node_modules/full-icu/
wget https://github.com/unicode-org/icu/releases/download/release-70-1/icu4c-70_1-data-bin-l.zip
unzip icu4c-70_1-data-bin-l.zip
cd ../..

9. Everything is set up, you can now use pkg and get a good result 😄

npm install -g pkg
pkg --output app.bin --target node14-linux-x64 --options icu-data-dir=./node_modules/full-icu index.js

10. Let's test our binary

./app.bin

{
  nodever: '14.20.0',
  node_maj: '14',
  node_min: '20',
  icu_small: true,
  icuver: '70.1',
  icumaj: '70',
  icuend: 'l',
  icupkg: 'icu4c-data@70l',
  icudat: 'icudt70l.dat',
  haveDat: [Function: haveDat],
  datPath: [Function: datPath]
}
Does not exist: /snapshot/app/node_modules/full-icu/icudt70l.dat
2022년 8월 14일
14 août 2022

If you see the same result as me, congratulations, you fixed your PKG ! As you can see, it uses small-icu (icu_small: true) but the foreign dates are correctly displaying, thanks to full-icu 🥳

[robertsLando]

@TBG-FR Could you create a PR to add that to docs ?

[afrz]

Hello @TBG-FR

Thanks for the trick👍 I manage to display correctly date/number using icu-data-dir option as you did.

However I can not manage to embed the icu.dat in the binary output (even using pkg/assets). Have you ? Because once compiled, if I remove the .dat file from specified location, it does not work anymore.. see error below :

bin\sample.exe: could not initialize ICU (check NODE_ICU_DATA or --icu-data-dir parameters)

[Warxcell]

Doesn't work here, it says that exactly that it should, but doesn't work

wget https://github.com/unicode-org/icu/releases/download/release-71-1/icu4c-71_1-data-bin-l.zip
unzip icu4c-71_1-data-bin-l.zip
mv icudt71l.dat node_modules/full-icu

const icu = require('full-icu')
console.log(icu)

try {
    console.log(icu.datPath())
} catch (ex) {
    console.log(ex)
}
console.log('GB', dateObj.toLocaleDateString('en-gb', options))
console.log('US', dateObj.toLocaleDateString('en-us', options))

outputs

{
  nodever: '18.5.0',
  node_maj: '18',
  node_min: '5',
  icu_small: true,
  icuver: '71.1',
  icumaj: '71',
  icuend: 'l',
  icupkg: 'icu4c-data@71l',
  icudat: 'icudt71l.dat',
  haveDat: [Function: haveDat],
  datPath: [Function: datPath]
}
/snapshot/app/node_modules/full-icu/icudt71l.dat
GB Nov 17, 2022
US Nov 17, 2022

[Warxcell]

I managed to get it working, but as @afrz said - it cannot be packaged inside binary - it works in dat file lives outside binary.

[TBG-FR]

I managed to get it working, but as @afrz said - it cannot be packaged inside binary - it works in dat file lives outside binary.

You're right, for now I didn't find a solution for that issue, I'm forced to move and use the dat files with the binary (outside) I think I tried modifying package.json tu put them in assets/scripts or something, but maybe I did it wrong

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