Handling of missing timestamps (i.e. 'N/A' in Robot Framework)

[Muusssi]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
If the the test result output files from e.g. Robot Framework contains items that are missing the timestamps (e.g. starttime='N/A') the parser will fail.

Describe the solution you'd like
The parser should gracefully handle such situations of missing timestamps. If it is ok for the data model the missing timestamps should be marked as null.

Additional context
The archiver was made to encourage users to archive as "raw" test results as possible. The missing timestamps are usually a result of "tampering with the results" i.e. modifications or restructuring the results. The problem can be usually be avoided by archiving the raw result data.

[sveneFX]

+1 for us, we are running in the same problem

[ChrissNCS]

+1 We are running into the same issue.

We are using a listener (v2) to run a keyword with BuiltIn().run_keyword("...") while "start_suite".
This line of code is provoking a "N/A" in output.xml.
<kw name="Implicit setup" type="SETUP"> ... <status status="PASS" starttime="N/A" endtime="N/A" elapsedtime="0"/> </kw>

We can´t change our listener so we need a fix in testarchiver please! :)

[ChrissNCS]

Created a workaround to "fix" the lines with "N/A" by adding following line:
Suite Setup Pass Execution message=Skip Empty Suite Setup

Buuuut run into the next issue while merging two reports... Again "N/A" for rerun test cases...

[astiphout]

+1 just started with testarchiver, finally got postgres rearing to go but RF results won't insert due to this problem

[Muusssi]

Due to the interest, we'll take this issue up next.

Thanks @ChrissNCS for the example of how this will impact users that I had not even considered. That is legitimately case where the archiver should work in future.

When this is caused by rebotting results to merge them before archiving, I still recommend archiving before the rebot.

[orlandobianco]

Hi, i've done some experiments with testarchiver, i love it but i encounter the timestamp error if i try to load merged output.txt
is there a workaround?
i can modify my workflow (so merge outputs after archiving them) but for older ones is a problem

[klschuff]

+1 for this as well.

[gs-vchauhan]

+1 for us , with merged output.xml test archiver is throwing exception