getDeviceTime(String format) doesn't format the system time

The problem

Method getDeviceTime(String format) isn’t formatting the time correctly.

Environment

• Appium version (or git revision) that exhibits the issue: 1.15.1
• Desktop OS/version used to run Appium: macOS Mojave 10.14.6
• Mobile platform/version under test: Android 9
• Real device or emulator/simulator: emulator
• Appium CLI or Appium.app|exe: CLI

Code To Reproduce Issue [ Good To Have ]

androidDriver.getDeviceTime("HH:mm");

I was expecting to get: 16:00 but got this: 2020-04-02T16:00:20-03:00 (which I think is the default ISO8601)

[mykola-mokhnach]

This should work now with appium@beta + java-client snapshot from master branch (commit cc4003f8217b2dc885b8c5c72f51712cf29f9793).

In case there is no possibility to switch then you could parse the returned ISO timestamp on the client side, for example using Java8 datetime helpers

[markbearden]

I see that this was resolved by https://github.com/appium/java-client/pull/1332 for the Java appium client, but I find this issue confusing.

It seems to be a report that the Appium server itself doesn’t respond to a time-response formatting parameter in the GET request. (“…Selenium, which does not support sending parameters in GET requests.”) The intended name of that parameter is never mentioned at all in this ticket. (Which is a problem, because there’s no such documented parameter for this Appium endpoint?) And the logs pasted above indicate that there was no attempt by the client to send any time formatting parameter. (So of course the parameter that was never sent by the client wasn’t used by the server. How is that an Appium server bug?)

The server logs show that the client sent: GET /wd/hub/session/d30d34f7-b7c6-4a16-a4c7-a50622fd5a6f/appium/device/system_time

And that request matches the current public Appium documentation, which indicates that there is no support for a time formatting parameter: http://appium.io/docs/en/commands/device/system/system-time/

Then this ticket, about the Appium server (?), was closed based on a change made to the Java appium client (only that one client?) rather than any change to the Appium server?

I had to read this very closely to see that no change was reported to the Appium server, and that the change reported to one particular Appium client library is not even “supposed to” work, according to the current docs for Appium server. So this is all kind of confusing. I’m not sure I can suggest a way to make things clearer, other than perhaps to update the Appium copy of the documentation for the Java client (at http://appium.io/docs/en/commands/device/system/system-time/#0_0) to indicate that the Java client is not even using this endpoint any more? (It’s diverting to an Appium ‘mobile’ script command?) and to show the new support for a “format” parameter? (Which I had to look at the other Java client issue to find out is the name of the parameter that’s being sent.)

Maybe my leaving this comment will un-confuse anyone who comes along reading in my footsteps.