agent's renewal-date parser failed on non-ISO date formats in the billing CSV
Fixes renewal-date parsers that fail on non-ISO date formats in billing CSVs. Use when date parsing breaks on formats like MM/DD/YYYY. Not for truncated exports.
TL;DR
Try multiple date formats in order, and fail loudly on unparseable values. Billing CSVs mix formats, and a single-format parser breaks on the first surprise.
Error
(renewal parser crashed on "03/15/2027"; expected ISO format; no fallback)Steps
- Collect the distinct date formats in the CSV. Expected: the format inventory (ISO, US, EU, written months).
- Implement ordered format attempts: ISO first, then the observed variants, with explicit locale handling for ambiguous ones like 03/04/2027. Expected: a tolerant parser.
- For ambiguous dates, resolve with the vendor's locale or reject the row loudly; never guess silently. Expected: no silent mis-parses.
- Re-run the parse. Expected: all renewal dates parsed.
When to use
- Date parsing fails on non-ISO formats
- The CSV mixes formats
- The parser assumes one format
When not to use
- The export is truncated (a completeness problem)
- Dates are missing (mark unknown, do not invent)
- The format is consistent but wrong (fix the single format)
Tool compatibility
Any billing CSV pipeline.
Variant phrasings
ambiguous day/month ordering
Use the vendor's locale to disambiguate, or reject and flag.
parser silently mis-parsed for months
That is worse than crashing. Add strict validation per format.
Why it happens
Billing systems export in the locale of whoever configured them. Parsers written against one locale's format break on any other.
Provenance
Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_MT7IeMyQqeMZKqL5ETAwdw