Self-registration: system accepts wrong DOB format

[Chauncey Montgomery]

This issue is similar to Bug 1774253. We have found that when a patron enters the date incorrectly, viz., MM-DD-YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY, the date doesn't come through properly when staff load the pending patron.

In the case of MM-DD-YYYY, a random date is put in for the birth date (e.g., 01-01-1969 becomes 05-23-1906). If MM/DD/YYYY is entered, then the field is completely blank.

Either the format should accept MM-DD-YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY, or it should completely prevent the wrong format from being entered when the patron submits the form.

We are using 3.1.8.

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

I thought there was already a launchpad bug for this, but I'm unable to find it.

I did a local fix for ours by tweaking the Javascript in the dobValidate function in js.tt2 to only accept dashes:

- var validformat = /^(19|20)\d\d([- /.])(0[1-9]|1[012])\2(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$/
+ var validformat = /^(19|20)\d\d([-])(0[1-9]|1[012])\2(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$/

and

- alert("[% l('You have entered an invalid date, or an improperly formatted date. Please enter Date of Birth in YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY/MM/DD format and try again.') %]")
+ alert("[% l('You have entered an invalid date, or an improperly formatted date. Please enter Date of Birth in YYYY-MM-DD format and try again.') %]")

I'm not sure if that's the best approach to this or if it would be better to change the code to accept other formats.

[Eva Cerninakova (ece)]

I would recommend for the date format to match the OPAC data setting, among other things because of localization. E.g., in Czech both YYYY-MM-DD and YYYY/MM/DD are quite unusual date format and thus they are confusing for users.

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

See also:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1860719
and
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1774253

[Joan Kranich (jkranich)]

Firefox for OPAC Self Registration
Chrome for staff Web Client
Evergreen release 3.4.2

In past testing I had difficulties with the date of birth loading properly in patron registration from a pending patron with a similar experience as described in this bug.

I have new results with today's test on 3.4.2.

The patron self registration form will not accept dates in the format of MM-DD-YYYY.
If I set the Web Client Library Setting: Format Dates with this pattern to MM-DD-YYYY and the Example dob field on patron registration to MM-DD-YYYY the self registration screen shows the example MM-DD-YYYY. However, I get an error when clicking Submit Registration stating to enter the date in YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY/MM/DD.
If I enter the date of birth in YYYY-MM-DD the form submits and the date of birth loads properly in the Web Client patron registration from the pending patron. That is good but a bad patron experience to get the error when completing the patron self registration form.

I believe the patron self registration form should use the library setting for the date format. Our library staff are most familiar with the format of MM-DD-YYYY.

[Andrea Neiman (aneiman)]

This is fixed in pullrequested bug 2065448 which reimplements this with a library setting to determine date order.