[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Small 1.6 RC1 bug - unexpected result whenattempting to register patron with invalid birthdate

[Catherine Buck Morgan]

However, forcing the birth date will cause problems for libraries who do not use birth dates when registering patrons. So making it a mandatory field will also cause problems. 

We went live on 1.4.0.4, and have blissfully ignored the invalid birth date message. However, if it becomes a mandatory field, we will have problems. 


--
Catherine Buck Morgan
Director, Division of Innovation, Technology & Library Services
South Carolina State Library 
POB 11469, 1500 Senate Street, Columbia, SC 29211
Phone: 803.734.8651 | Cell: 803.239.8363 | Fax: 803.734.4757
cmorgan at statelibrary.sc.gov www.statelibrary.sc.gov 

The South Carolina State Library is a national model for innovation, collaboration, leadership and effectiveness.  It is the keystone in South Carolina's intellectual landscape. 




-----Original Message-----
From: Galen Charlton [mailto:gmc at esilibrary.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 8:26 AM
To: open-ils-dev at list.georgialibraries.org
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-DEV] Small 1.6 RC1 bug - unexpected result whenattempting to register patron with invalid birthdate

Hi,

Small glitch that one of our customers ran across - they actually  
found it in 1.4.0.4, but I was able to reproduce it in 1.6RC1.  I  
assume Jason or somebody else can fix this in five minutes, but if  
nobody picks it up in the next couple days, I might try my hand at a  
fix.

Summary:

If you enter an invalid birth date when registering a new patron,  
e.g., 1971-11-31 (November has only 30 days), the client gives you an  
alert warning you that the date "in the future or invalid". However,  
if you ignore that and try to save the record anyway, you get an alert  
box with a stacktrace warning.

How to reproduce:

1. Start registering a new patron.
2. Set the birthdate to an invalid date such as 1971-11-31.
3. Dismiss the dialog box that pops up after you enter the invalid  
birth date.
4. Fill in the rest of the required fields.
5. Save the new record.

Current results:

You get a DATABASE_UPDATE_FAILED alert with a stacktrace.

Expected results:

The staff client should treat an invalid date like it does a missing  
mandatory field and not allow the staff operator to save the patron  
record until the error is cleared. The warning message should also be  
tweaked to making it clear that the date is out of range, as otherwise  
a staff member may read the current message, think that 1971-11-31 is  
a YYYY-MM-DD date, and ignore it.

[Note: this is also Equinox case 2811].

Regards,

Galen
--
Galen Charlton
VP, Data Services
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
direct: +1 352-215-7548
skype:  gmcharlt
web:    http://www.esilibrary.com/