time: zone discovery logic fails on non-English versions of Windows

[alexbrainman]

From https://golang.org/issue/3790?c=11

#11 matrixik
I found one more:
MST

--- FAIL: TestLocalZoneAbbr (0.00 seconds)
        zoneinfo_windows_test.go:18: Parse failed: parsing time "Sat, 22 Jun 2013 13:42:36 +0200" as "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 MST": cannot parse "+0200" as "MST"

Windows 7 x32
go version devel +56909cb770fe Fri Jun 21 18:07:57 2013 -0700 windows/386

Best regards,
Dobrosław Żybort
Jun 23 (47 hours ago) Delete comment Project Member #12 alex.brainman
matrixik,

Do you mind running this program http://play.golang.org/p/vCsioBDpMk on your computer
and reporting results back here? I suspect your syscall.Timezoneinformation is different
from what Go supports at this moment. And I am wonering why and what to do about it.

Thank you.

Alex

Today (12 hours ago) #13 matrixik
Alex,

Results:

```
i=syscall.Timezoneinformation{Bias:-60, StandardName:[32]uint16{0x15a, 0x72, 0x6f, 0x64,
0x6b, 0x6f, 0x77, 0x6f, 0x65, 0x75, 0x72, 0x6f, 0x70, 0x65, 0x6a, 0x73, 0x6b, 0x69,
0x20, 0x63, 0x7a, 0x61, 0x73, 0x20, 0x73, 0x74, 0x61, 0x6e, 0x64, 0x2e, 0x0, 0x0},
StandardDate:syscall.Systemtime{Year:0x0, Month:0xa, DayOfWeek:0x0, Day:0x5, Hour:0x3,
Minute:0x0, Second:0x0, Milliseconds:0x0}, StandardBias:0,
DaylightName:[32]uint16{0x15a, 0x72, 0x6f, 0x64, 0x6b, 0x6f, 0x77, 0x6f, 0x65, 0x75,
0x72, 0x6f, 0x70, 0x65, 0x6a, 0x73, 0x6b, 0x69, 0x20, 0x63, 0x7a, 0x61, 0x73, 0x20,
0x6c, 0x65, 0x74, 0x6e, 0x69, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0}, DaylightDate:syscall.Systemtime{Year:0x0,
Month:0x3, DayOfWeek:0x0, Day:0x5, Hour:0x2, Minute:0x0, Second:0x0, Milliseconds:0x0},
DaylightBias:-60}
i.StandardName="Środkowoeuropejski czas stand."
i.DaylightName="Środkowoeuropejski czas letni"
```

Where:
Środkowoeuropejski czas stand. = Central European Standard Time.
Środkowoeuropejski czas letni = Central European Summer Time

Best regards,
Dobrosław Żybort

[alexbrainman]

Comment 1:

matrixik,
We use https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/time/zoneinfo_abbrs_windows.go
table to translate Windows zone names reported via GetTimeZoneInformation winapi into
zone abbreviations required for time.Format function. As you can see, our table includes
English only descriptions, while your system returns names in your local language.
I am not sure what to do. We need English zone names for our approach to work. I don't
see us adding appropriate strings for every language we find. Not yet anyway.
So I am trying to find a way to translate these into English in some clever way. The
time zone information is stored in the registry. It is stored in
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones" key on my
computer (you must use regedit program to access it). You have your non-English strings
stored there somewhere, but perhaps you have English strings there too (they are not
exposed via GetTimeZoneInformation api). Perhaps there is enough information there so we
could do the translation. Could you, please, send us the contents of
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones" key (just
right click on the key and select "export" menu option and save it to a file and post it
here. The file will have *all* timezones from your computer. Feel free to email file
privately, if you like.
I am opened to any suggestions from everyone.
Thank you
Alex

[matrixik]

Comment 2:

Time zone keys names are still in English, `Dlt`, `Std` and `Display` strings are in
Polish.
Best regards,
Dobrosław Żybort

Attachments:

1. windows7_pl_time_zones.reg (194814 bytes)

[alexbrainman]

Comment 3:

matrixik,
Thank you for the file. I can see (you could too) that appropriate registry keys have
English names we require. Perhaps it will be enough to fix our problem. I will have a go
at it when I have time.
Alex

[alexbrainman]

Comment 4:

matrixik,
Can you, please check if https://golang.org/cl/10956043/ fixes your problem.
Thank you.
Alex

Status changed to Started.

[matrixik]

Comment 5:

When I apply it all tests pass.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Dobrosław Żybort

[alexbrainman]

Comment 6:

This issue was closed by revision 231dfd9.

Status changed to Fixed.

[matrixik]

Comment 7:

Thank you.
Best regards,
Dobrosław Żybort

[snaury]

Comment 8:

Unfortunately, the fix seems to be incomplete, since I see a slightly different error
with this test:
--- FAIL: TestLocalZoneAbbr (0.00 seconds)
zoneinfo_windows_test.go:18: Parse failed: parsing time "Wed, 07 Aug 2013 00:30:36 MSK"
as "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 MST": cannot parse "MSK" as "MST"
FAIL
FAIL time 3.849s
So it is formatted correctly, but not parsed. My data:
i=syscall.Timezoneinformation{Bias:-240, StandardName:[32]uint16{0x41c, 0x43e, 0x441,
0x43a, 0x43e, 0x432, 0x441, 0x43a, 0x43e, 0x435, 0x20, 0x432, 0x440, 0x435, 0x43c,
0x44f, 0x20, 0x28, 0x437, 0x438, 0x43c, 0x430, 0x29, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0,
0x0, 0x0}, StandardDate:syscall.Systemtime{Year:0x0, Month:0x0, DayOfWeek:0x0, Day:0x0,
Hour:0x0, Minute:0x0, Second:0x0, Milliseconds:0x0}, StandardBias:0,
DaylightName:[32]uint16{0x41c, 0x43e, 0x441, 0x43a, 0x43e, 0x432, 0x441, 0x43a, 0x43e,
0x435, 0x20, 0x432, 0x440, 0x435, 0x43c, 0x44f, 0x20, 0x28, 0x43b, 0x435, 0x442, 0x43e,
0x29, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0,0x0, 0x0},
DaylightDate:syscall.Systemtime{Year:0x0, Month:0x0, DayOfWeek:0x0, Day:0x0, Hour:0x0,
Minute:0x0, Second:0x0, Milliseconds:0x0}, DaylightBias:-60}
i.StandardName="Московское время (зима)"
i.DaylightName="Московское время (лето)"
It translates as "Moscow time (winter)", "Moscow time (summer)".

[snaury]

Comment 9:

Ah, sorry, it's a different issue after all.