[BUG] AI.FormRecognizer SDK not parsing date correctly

Describe the bug Even though the form recognizer service is returning the correct date from a form, the SDK is failing at parsing it.

Expected behavior I expect the DateTime to be parsed in the right format, or at least to have some control over the locale which should be used for parsing.

Actual behavior (include Exception or Stack Trace) The ValueData property holds the string with the correct datetime value (nl-NL locale format), but the operation FormField.Value.AsDate() returns the error from line https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-net/blob/b752803792ebaddad5a4de009857b51f7c3f0399/sdk/formrecognizer/Azure.AI.FormRecognizer/src/FieldValue.cs#L266. This indicates the string value was not correctly parsed to a valid DateTime object.

Example:

This perfectly valid date will throw the above error when trying to retrieve it using AsDate().

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior (include a code snippet, screenshot, or any additional information that might help us reproduce the issue)

1. Recognize a document in another locale than en-US
2. Try to exact a DateTime field as mentioned

Environment:

• Azure.AI.FormRecognizer
• Windows 10, .NET SDK 5.0.201, Host version 5.0.4
• Visual Studio 16.9.2

[yowl]

@kinelski Thanks, I confirm that works for me.

[kinelski]

I would say yes because with 4.0.0 DocumentAnalysisModelFactory.DocumentFieldValueWithDateFieldType cannot accept a string so there is no means to test.

DocumentFieldValue.AsDate does not try to parse the content string. If you get an exception when you invoke it, it means that the service could not parse the date and hasn’t returned a value to the SDK. In 4.0.0, when this happens, DocumentField.FieldType will be set to DocumentFieldType.Unknown, so you don’t need to rely on exceptions:

if (field.FieldType == DocumentFieldType.Date)
{
    date = field.Value.AsDate();
}
else // field.FieldType is DocumentFieldType.Unknown
{
    date = /* parse date manually from DocumentField.Content */;
}

To reproduce this behavior with the model factory, you can call the DocumentFieldValueWithUnknownFieldType method:

var fieldValue = DocumentAnalysisModelFactory
    .DocumentFieldValueWithUnknownFieldType(expectedFieldType: DocumentFieldType.Date);

Please let me know if this solves your problem.