Bogus 'runtest' "Duration" message due to host Language regional date/time format settings

[Fish-Git]

I happened to notice in someone's Hercules Helper log file, the following "Duration" message after the make check step (near the very end of the log file), where runtest is invoked to run all of Hercules's quality assurance tests to verify that a properly working Hercules executable was just built:

Duration: 21 hours, 48 minutes, 21 seconds

Suspecting that this was an obvious bogus duration (our entire suite of tests usuall only take a minute or three at the most!), I asked Bill to look into it. He responded with:

• HHC00137E Error opening TUN/TAP device C8-5B-76-A5-4A-B3: No such file or directory  #695 (comment)

which we both suspect is being caused by the fact that the user's host o/s (Windows 11) Language setting was set to a non-English language (in this case, French), since different regions and languages format their dates and times differently than the way we do here in the U.S.

In French for example, the %date% batch variable is formatted as e.g. "28/11/2024" (i.e. dd/mm/yyyy) whereas runtest expects it to be in mm/dd/yyyy format (e.g. 11/28/2024).

Same thing with the %time% batch file variable as well: in French it's 19:11:39,11 whereas runtestis written to expect 19:11:39.11 instead.  (notice the comma and the period)

This issue is being created to record the fact that this oversight (BUG!) needs to eventually be fixed.

[Fish-Git]

Fixed by commit a54ac18.

(But NOT tested on any non-English system)

[wrljet]

Fish,

I just had another Hercules-Helper for Windows user send me a log file for an unrelated issue, and I noticed these oddball looking timestamps.

Begin: "runtest -n * -t 2 -d ..\sdl-hyperion\tests" ...

On:     Fri 01/24/2025  at ~8,2:~10 AM

...

Ended at: Fri 01/24/2025  at ~8,2:~10 AM

Duration: 2 hours, 2 minutes

I've asked for information about the language/locale but haven't heard back yet.
Oh, and it all looks like normal English text.

Bill

[Fish-Git]

(SIGH!)  Internationalization is such a PITA.  :(

I've asked for information about the language/locale but haven't heard back yet.

Ask them to send us the output of a echo %date% %time% command too.

(Is the duration at least right? It seems a tad on the high side.)

[wrljet]

He's using US English and echo %date% %time% by itself display as expected.

... developing ...

[Fish-Git]

Well I'm stumped!  :(

Maybe you can insert a set "DEBUG=1" just before runtest.cmd is invoked/called in your Hercules Helper script, and then reset it back to undefined afterwards (set "DEBUG=") so we can maybe see what's going on?

(Defining DEBUG will activate the %TRACE% statements sprinkled throughout the script and will hopefully provide us a clue as to where things are going wrong.)

[Fish-Git]

@wrljet Status? Does this issue need to be re-opened? Do we still have unresolved problems? Or can I remove it from my notifications list? Thanks.

[wrljet]

Have been unable to reproduce locally.

[Fish-Git]

Fine. Then I'll stop worrying about it. Thanks.