282115 - toLocaleString not working together with Date.parse

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: JavaScript Engine, defect)

Description

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

This all happens with system locale German and timezone GMT+1
First create a new date with
var givenDate = new Date(0);
Then transform it to a localized string:
givenDate.toLocaleString(), returns Donnerstag, 01. Januar 1970 01:00:00
When you now feed this to Date.parse, as in
Date.parse(givenDate.toLocaleString()), it returns NaN
I'm not sure if this is a valid bug, at least there was a JS Testcase written
for it, see the URL (but at the time the testcase was written, toLocaleString
wasn't really working yet, see Bug 153586).

Comment 1

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

I don't think this is a bug.  Requiring Date.parse to handle all possible
outputs from Date.prototype.toLocaleString would be quite onerous indeed. 
toLocaleString is intended, IMO, for user-presentation purposes, and not as a
transport/transcoding format.

Comment 2

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

There is no requirement per ECMA-262 Edition 3, and no practical general
solution as shaver noted.

/be

Comment 3

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Maybe 15.9.5.5.js and 15.9.5.6.js could then be altered and/or removed (since
these testcases aren't valid)?

Comment 4

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Testcases are handled in Bug 282339.