FINAL UPDATE: I have tried this today, 7th of May 2008, and the bug is gone from all versions of IE and FF. I think it is the result of some Windows XP patch.
I found out that in Javascript, the Date object can give weird results.
Imagine that new Date(2005,2,27) [Javascript months are 0=11] returns 26 March 2005. If you look closely, you will see that it returns 26.03.2005 23:00:00.
Why? Because then our computers are configured to change the time with one hour. In a sense, this is not an error, as 27.03.2005 00:00:00 does not exist. You either have 1:00 of the 27th or 23:00 of the 26th. It is weird that Javascript both on IE and Netscape (and probably all other browsers) chooses the second option.
[Update thanks to a comment]I live in Romania. 27 of March 2005 is a daylight saving date (a bit non standard). Maybe the same bug can be reproduced for other countries on their respective daylight saving dates.[/Update]
This can yield weird results, as validators sometimes fail to recognize 27.03.2005 as a valid date. The solution for Javascript code: always use new Date(year, month, day, 12, 0, 0). The solution for validators... well, except calling Microsoft and bitching about it or changing the validator JS
file on ALL deployment servers, is either use a home made validator or replace the faulty validator js function in the pages that need date validation.
That means adding in the common site js this function:
function ValidatorConvert(op, dataType, val) {
function GetFullYear(year) {
return (year + parseInt(val.century)) - ((year < val.cutoffyear) ? 0 : 100);
}
var num, cleanInput, m, exp;
if (dataType == "Integer") {
exp = /^\s*[-\+]?\d+\s*$/;
if (op.match(exp) == null)
return null;
num = parseInt(op, 10);
return (isNaN(num) ? null : num);
}
else if(dataType == "Double") {
exp = new RegExp("^\\s*([-\\+])?(\\d+)?(\\" + val.decimalchar + "(\\d+))?\\s*$");
m = op.match(exp);
if (m == null)
return null;
cleanInput = m[1] + (m[2].length>0 ? m[2] : "0") + "." + m[4];
num = parseFloat(cleanInput);
return (isNaN(num) ? null : num);
}
else if (dataType == "Currency") {
exp = new RegExp("^\\s*([-\\+])?(((\\d+)\\" + val.groupchar + ")*)(\\d+)"
+ ((val.digits > 0) ? "(\\" + val.decimalchar + "(\\d{1," + val.digits + "}))?" : "")
+ "\\s*$");
m = op.match(exp);
if (m == null)
return null;
var intermed = m[2] + m[5] ;
cleanInput = m[1] + intermed.replace(new RegExp("(\\" + val.groupchar + ")", "g"), "") + ((val.digits > 0) ? "." + m[7] : 0);
num = parseFloat(cleanInput);
return (isNaN(num) ? null : num);
}
else if (dataType == "Date") {
var yearFirstExp = new RegExp("^\\s*((\\d{4})|(\\d{2}))([-/]|\\. ?)(\\d{1,2})\\4(\\d{1,2})\\s*$");
m = op.match(yearFirstExp);
var day, month, year;
if (m != null && (m[2].length == 4 || val.dateorder == "ymd")) {
day = m[6];
month = m[5];
year = (m[2].length == 4) ? m[2] : GetFullYear(parseInt(m[3],10))
}
else {
if (val.dateorder == "ymd"){
return null;
}
var yearLastExp = new RegExp("^\\s*(\\d{1,2})([-/]|\\. ?)(\\d{1,2})\\2((\\d{4})|(\\d{2}))\\s*$");
m = op.match(yearLastExp);
if (m == null) {
return null;
}
if (val.dateorder == "mdy") {
day = m[3];
month = m[1];
}
else {
day = m[1];
month = m[3];
}
year = (m[5].length == 4) ? m[5] : GetFullYear(parseInt(m[6], 10))
}
month -= 1;
var date = new Date(year, month, day,12,0,0); //BUG FIX
return (typeof(date) == "object" && year == date.getFullYear() && month == date.getMonth() && day == date.getDate()) ? date.valueOf() : null;
}
else {
return op.toString();
}
}
