Jira (FACT-2930) Inconsistent handling of Date types in custom facts

[Josh Cooper (Jira)]

Title: Message Title

Josh Cooper updated an issue   Facter / FACT-2930 Inconsistent handling of Date types in custom facts Change By: Josh Cooper If a custom fact returns a {{Time}} value, then facter will report: {noformat} $ mkdir facts $ cat > facts/time.rb <<END Facter.add(:now) do   setcode { Time.now } end END $ bx facter --custom-dir /Users/josh/work/facter/facts --trace [2021-01-29 11:59:02.519014 ] ERROR Facter - Fact resolution fact='now', resolution='<anonymous>' resolved to an invalid value: Expected 2021-01-29 11:59:02 -0800 to be one of [Integer, Float, TrueClass, FalseClass, NilClass, Symbol, String, Array, Hash], but was Time backtrace: /Users/josh/work/facter/lib/facter/custom_facts/util/normalization.rb:29:in `normalize' /Users/josh/work/facter/lib/facter/custom_facts/core/resolvable.rb:71:in `value' /Users/josh/work/facter/lib/facter/custom_facts/util/fact.rb:209:in `block in find_first_real_value' /Users/josh/work/facter/lib/facter/custom_facts/util/fact.rb:207:in `each' /Users/josh/work/facter/lib/facter/custom_facts/util/fact.rb:207:in `find_first_real_value' /Users/josh/work/facter/lib/facter/custom_facts/util/fact.rb:133:in `block (2 levels) in value' {noformat} Note that the error message contains: { noformat} [Integer, Float, TrueClass, FalseClass, NilClass, Symbol, String, Array, Hash], but was Time { noformat} Note {{ Date}} is missing from the list of [valid types| https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter/blob/0654f8f6858ca0163680b3d8dfc53d90345f0f35/lib/facter/custom_facts/util/normalization.rb#L8 ] , but facter does accept {{Date}}: https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter/blob/0654f8f6858ca0163680b3d8dfc53d90345f0f35/lib/facter/custom_facts/util/normalization.rb#L19. So we probably need to add Date to {{VALID_TYPES}}... - However, if facter serializes a Date, it does so using {{Date#to_s}} which will be different for different locales. I would expect facter to always serialize using a well known format like ISO 8601. - Facter calls {{Date#to_s}} which serializes as ISO 8601. It might be better to make that explicit {{#Date#iso8601}}. That said facter 3 did not support date or time types (https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter/blob/3.x/lib/schema/facter.yaml#L5-L14) so I'm inclined to think facter 4 shouldn't either, and {{Date}} should be removed from the case statement. Add Comment   This message was sent by Atlassian Jira (v8.5.2#805002-sha1:a66f935) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Bugs" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to puppet-bugs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/puppet-bugs/JIRA.385405.1611950891000.128599.1611951480037%40Atlassian.JIRA.