Better error message if a chart fails to render if YYYY-MM-DD dates have 00-00 for MM-DD
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	bvibber
	May 15 2025, 2:16 AM

Description

While testing a transformation of datetime data, I found that a cell formatted as eg 1850-00-00 results in the chart failing to render with a generic error "There was an error rendering the chart."

chart - https://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Data:Bad_data.chart
tabular dataset - https://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Data:Bad_data.tab

Replacing the 00-00 with 01-01 renders successfully.

Screenshot:

Expected:

The error should at least specify that the incorrect date format is what's causing the chart to fail to render.

Details

Related Changes in GitLab:

	Title	Reference	Author	Source Branch	Dest Branch
	Fix for isDateSeries	repos/mediawiki/services/chart-renderer!96	bvibber	bad-dates	main
	Fix for isDateSeries	repos/mediawiki/services/chart-renderer!95	bvibber	bad-dates	main

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		Status	Subtype	Assigned	Task
		Open		None	T375677 Show more specific and localized error messages for chart rendering errors in the Chart extension
		Resolved		CCiufo-WMF	T394367 Better error message if a chart fails to render if YYYY-MM-DD dates have 00-00 for MM-DD

Event Timeline

bvibber created this task.May 15 2025, 2:16 AM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptMay 15 2025, 2:16 AM

Maybe this is not really a bug? Is 00-00 for MM-DD a standard way of identifying a year in YYYY-MM-DD format? My understanding is YYYY-00-00 is not really valid ISO 8601.

It feels like a bug because it just spews a generic error without giving you the slightest idea what you did wrong. If it should cause a failure to render to include a value "1850-00-00" in a data cell then it needs to report that error to the user, with specificity.

In T394367#10831002, @bvibber wrote:

It feels like a bug because it just spews a generic error without giving you the slightest idea what you did wrong. If it should cause a failure to render to include a value "1850-00-00" in a data cell then it needs to report that error to the user, with specificity.

Agreed -- I updated the task to reflect this.

CCiufo-WMF triaged this task as Medium priority.May 16 2025, 6:24 PM

simon04 added a parent task: T375677: Show more specific and localized error messages for chart rendering errors in the Chart extension.May 19 2025, 7:00 PM

Trying to guess data types from strings with no feedback to the user on what the formats are seems very problematic and I would have preferred a more specific system where something like date or year formatting was something you opted into in the chart format JSON.

bvibber opened https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/repos/mediawiki/services/chart-renderer/-/merge_requests/95

Fix for isDateSeries

bvibber moved this task from Backlog to Current Sprint on the Charts board.Jun 24 2025, 7:19 PM

bvibber edited projects, added Charts (Current Sprint); removed Charts.

bvibber moved this task from Incoming to Code Review on the Charts (Current Sprint) board.

bvibber closed https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/repos/mediawiki/services/chart-renderer/-/merge_requests/95

Fix for isDateSeries

bvibber opened https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/repos/mediawiki/services/chart-renderer/-/merge_requests/96

Fix for isDateSeries

aude merged https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/repos/mediawiki/services/chart-renderer/-/merge_requests/96

Fix for isDateSeries

bvibber moved this task from Code Review to Merged and Awaiting Deployment on the Charts (Current Sprint) board.Jun 24 2025, 8:17 PM