DOC-18365 Internationalize time by abescheideman-wf · Pull Request #205 · Workiva/w_common

abescheideman-wf · 2025-12-30T19:33:27Z

Motivation

As part of an effort to internationalize the Document Health panel, let's internationalize our time helper.

See https://workiva.slack.com/archives/CEDM9RH1N/p1767112008311229 for more context.

Changes

Use getters to format the time when it's needed to avoid potential race conditions when initializing the DateFormat variables before our locale is set.

Release Notes

Review

See CONTRIBUTING.md for more details on review types (+1 / QA +1 / +10) and code review process.

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QA Checklist

Since there's not a way to change your locale on deploys or a local build of DPC, there's no real way to QA these changes

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For release PRs - Version metadata in Rosie comment is correct

…rnationalize-time # Conflicts: # w_common/pubspec.yaml

timothyellis-wk · 2026-01-02T15:18:31Z

.github/workflows/dart_ci.yml

      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
-        sdk: [ 2.19.6, stable ]
+        sdk: [ 2.19.6, 3.9.4 ]


Is this a CI issue unrelated to your change? What are we downgrading to 3.9.4 here? Will we want to go back and change this to stable at some point?

Looks like w_common is on an older version 1.4.2 of workiva_analysis_options. So bumping to 1.4.3 should fix as those lint options were removed. Workiva/workiva_analysis_options#221

lauracallahan-wk · 2026-01-05T16:10:42Z

w_common/pubspec.yaml

  mocktail: ^1.0.4
  test: ^1.21.1
-  workiva_analysis_options: ^1.4.2
+  workiva_analysis_options: ^1.0.0


It looks like we'll want to upgrade this instead of downgrading

alanknight-wk · 2026-01-05T20:41:21Z

w_common/lib/time.dart

+
 /// The format of a timestamp with no date.
-DateFormat timeFormat = DateFormat('h:mma');
+DateFormat timeFormat = DateFormat('h:mma', locale);


I don't think this is going to work. If you don't pass a locale, it should already get the default one. The problem (if this isn't working) is probably a race condition between the locale being set and these format variables being set.
Since we save the date locale in the session, it isn't set until fairly late in the initialization process. If these variables are referenced before that, then they'll have invalid values.

I would say try changing these be getters, without passing the locale, and see if that fixes it. If it does, then, depending how often these are used, you might want to look at making it not recompute them every time.

alanknight-wk · 2026-01-05T20:45:21Z

w_common/lib/time.dart

  if (deltaDays < 1 && now.day == time.day) {
    // "Today, XX:XXam"
-    return 'Today, $timeOfDay';
+    return '${Intl.message('Today')}, $timeOfDay';


This (the bare Intl.message call) also isn't going to work. You need to put this inside a method inside an _intl.dart file in this package. Also, probably better to depend on w_intl than the base intl.

I see that pattern, but I don't totally understand why we need a separate _intl.dart file?

Also, I don't think there are 1:1 ways to get the same DateFormats from w_intl. Is that something we want to add to w_intl, or is the current iteration more like what we want?

They need to be wrapped in a function, but the requirement for the _intl.dart file is internal, it's just how we find the messages to send for translation without parsing the whole source tree. For external it probably won't matter, but if you want these to work internally, you'll need them to be in a file like that.

abescheideman-wf · 2026-01-05T21:24:41Z

w_common/pubspec.yaml

+  w_intl:
+    hosted:
+      name: w_intl
+      url: https://pub.workiva.org


Just stumbling my way through this, w_common is currently open source, so I'm guessing this is another blocker @alanknight-wk ?

Ah, then you should probably just use the basic intl.

alanknight-wk · 2026-01-05T21:56:05Z

w_common/lib/time.dart


 /// The format of a timestamp with no date.
-DateFormat timeFormat = DateFormat('h:mma');
+DateFormat get timeFormat => DateFormat('h:mma');


Another comment, you probably don't want this. If it doesn't match one of the skeletons, then it won't know how to convert it for other locales. You probably want DateFormat.jm()

timothyellis-wk · 2026-01-06T18:25:22Z

w_common/lib/time.dart


 /// The format of a timestamp with no date.
-DateFormat timeFormat = DateFormat('h:mma');
+DateFormat get timeFormat => DateFormat.jm();


Is this change going to add a space before the AM/PM?

It will add a space, but we're preferring to adapt to locale now.

jacobfeddersen-wf · 2026-01-07T17:03:19Z

w_common/lib/time.dart

  if (deltaDays < 1 && now.day == time.day) {
    // "Today, XX:XXam"
-    return 'Today, $timeOfDay';
+    return '${TimeIntl.today}, $timeOfDay';


I think it would be preferred to include the punctuation in the internationalized string. I'd pass in the time as a parameter.

https://frontend.workiva.dev/topics/internationalization/best-practices.html#do-not-separate-punctuation-from-the-message

b85897e

alanknight-wk · 2026-01-07T17:50:27Z

w_common/lib/time.dart

  if (deltaDays < 1 && now.day == time.day) {
    // "Today, XX:XXam"
-    return 'Today, $timeOfDay';
+    return TimeIntl.today(timeOfDay);


You probably want to take out that toLowerCase on timeOfDay above. That's not necessarily correct in other locales.

Oh yeah, good catch!

jacobfeddersen-wf · 2026-01-07T20:02:03Z

I consumed this in DPC and ran CI just to make sure we won't break anything https://github.com/Workiva/doc_plat_client/pull/57492

kristleschulz-wk · 2026-01-09T16:47:16Z

QA +1

kristleschulz-wk · 2026-01-09T16:47:20Z

@Workiva/release-management-p

Try internationalizing

0639ac4

btr-rmconsole-4 bot added the Merge Requirements Unmet label Dec 30, 2025

abescheideman-wf added 7 commits December 30, 2025 16:05

local variable

c9f6a85

downgrade ci version

f0fa5a7

use w_intl

937cca9

add version

313efe4

dont add external dependency

b836320

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/internationalize-time' into inte…

c201078

…rnationalize-time # Conflicts: # w_common/pubspec.yaml

dont add external dependency

d206e1d

abescheideman-wf changed the title ~~Try internationalizing~~ DOC-18365 Internationalize time Dec 31, 2025

abescheideman-wf marked this pull request as ready for review December 31, 2025 01:25

abescheideman-wf requested review from kristleschulz-wk, lauracallahan-wk and marshallmoats-wk December 31, 2025 01:25

kristleschulz-wk previously approved these changes Dec 31, 2025

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timothyellis-wk reviewed Jan 2, 2026

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upgrade analysis options

3ac6088

abescheideman-wf dismissed kristleschulz-wk’s stale review via 3ac6088 January 5, 2026 15:04

abescheideman-wf added 2 commits January 5, 2026 09:25

w_common_tools too

57cee43

follow workiva_analysis_options consumption pattern

945c72f

lauracallahan-wk reviewed Jan 5, 2026

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wait to pull in latest analysis options

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lauracallahan-wk previously approved these changes Jan 5, 2026

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alanknight-wk reviewed Jan 5, 2026

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abescheideman-wf added 2 commits January 5, 2026 15:20

define translated strings in a separate file

918cc14

get DateFormat when needed to avoid locale setting race conditions

a5f519e

abescheideman-wf dismissed lauracallahan-wk’s stale review via a5f519e January 5, 2026 21:20

abescheideman-wf commented Jan 5, 2026

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abescheideman-wf requested a review from alanknight-wk January 5, 2026 21:33

abescheideman-wf added 2 commits January 5, 2026 15:47

don't depend on w_intl

62b8114

format

bc61969

alanknight-wk reviewed Jan 5, 2026

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hour minute skeleton

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abescheideman-wf requested a review from alanknight-wk January 5, 2026 22:03

braxtonlyddon-wk previously approved these changes Jan 6, 2026

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keatoncarter-wf previously approved these changes Jan 6, 2026

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timothyellis-wk reviewed Jan 6, 2026

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timothyellis-wk previously approved these changes Jan 6, 2026

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jacobfeddersen-wf reviewed Jan 7, 2026

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include puncutation in intl string

b85897e

jacobfeddersen-wf dismissed stale reviews from timothyellis-wk, keatoncarter-wf, and braxtonlyddon-wk via b85897e January 7, 2026 17:31

dartfmt

e0483f1

alanknight-wk reviewed Jan 7, 2026

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remove toLowerCase, as it may not work correctly in all locales

2e748f4

braxtonlyddon-wk approved these changes Jan 7, 2026

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timothyellis-wk approved these changes Jan 8, 2026

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jacobfeddersen-wf requested a review from alanknight-wk January 8, 2026 18:18

btr-rmconsole-6 bot added the RM Ready label Jan 9, 2026

kristleschulz-wk merged commit 54040ac into master Jan 9, 2026
4 checks passed

rmconsole-readonly-wk mentioned this pull request Feb 7, 2026

RM-298705 Release w_common 3.4.0 #211

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abescheideman-wf commented Dec 30, 2025 • edited by kristleschulz-wk Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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jacobfeddersen-wf commented Jan 7, 2026

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abescheideman-wf commented Dec 30, 2025 •

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