Removing the use of helper-date which was causing some problems, instead took what we needed of it out of the package and updated to use dayjs instead of moment.

packages/string-templates/package.json

@@ -15,9 +15,9 @@
   },
   "dependencies": {
     "@budibase/handlebars-helpers": "^0.11.3",
+    "dayjs": "^1.10.4",
     "handlebars": "^4.7.6",
     "handlebars-utils": "^1.0.6",
-    "helper-date": "^1.0.1",
     "lodash": "^4.17.20"
   },
   "devDependencies": {

packages/string-templates/src/helpers/date.js

@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+const dayjs = require("dayjs")
+
+/**
+ * This file was largely taken from the helper-date package - we did this for two reasons:
+ * 1. It made use of both moment of date.js - this caused some weird bugs with some relatively simple
+ * syntax and didn't offer much in return.
+ * 2. Replacing moment with dayjs helps massively reduce bundle size.
+ * The original package can be found here:
+ * https://github.com/helpers/helper-date
+ */
+
+function isOptions(val) {
+  return typeof(val) === "object" && typeof(val.hash) === "object"
+}
+
+function isApp(thisArg) {
+  return typeof(thisArg) === "object"
+    && typeof(thisArg.options) === "object"
+    && typeof(thisArg.app) === "object"
+}
+
+function getContext(thisArg, locals, options) {
+  if (isOptions(thisArg)) {
+    return getContext({}, locals, thisArg)
+  }
+  // ensure args are in the correct order
+  if (isOptions(locals)) {
+    return getContext(thisArg, options, locals)
+  }
+  const appContext = isApp(thisArg) ? thisArg.context : {}
+  options = options || {}
+
+  // if "options" is not handlebars options, merge it onto locals
+  if (!isOptions(options)) {
+    locals = Object.assign({}, locals, options)
+  }
+  // merge handlebars root data onto locals if specified on the hash
+  if (isOptions(options) && options.hash.root === true) {
+    locals = Object.assign({}, options.data.root, locals)
+  }
+  let context = Object.assign({}, appContext, locals, options.hash)
+  if (!isApp(thisArg)) {
+    context = Object.assign({}, thisArg, context)
+  }
+  if (isApp(thisArg) && thisArg.view && thisArg.view.data) {
+    context = Object.assign({}, context, thisArg.view.data)
+  }
+  return context
+}
+
+module.exports = function dateHelper(str, pattern, options) {
+  if (isOptions(pattern)) {
+    options = pattern
+    pattern = null
+  }
+
+  if (isOptions(str)) {
+    options = str
+    pattern = null
+    str = null
+  }
+
+  // if no args are passed, return a formatted date
+  if (str == null && pattern == null) {
+    dayjs.locale("en")
+    return dayjs().format("MMMM DD, YYYY")
+  }
+
+  const defaults = {lang: "en", date: new Date(str)}
+  const opts = getContext(this, defaults, options)
+
+  // set the language to use
+  dayjs.locale(opts.lang || opts.language)
+
+  return dayjs(new Date(str)).format(pattern)
+}

packages/string-templates/src/helpers/external.js

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 const helpers = require("@budibase/handlebars-helpers")
-const dateHelper = require("helper-date")
+const dateHelper = require("./date")
 const { HelperFunctionBuiltin } = require("./constants")
 
 /**

packages/string-templates/test/helpers.spec.js

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 const {
   processString,
+  processObject,
   isValid,
 } = require("../src/index")
 
@@ -330,4 +331,11 @@ describe("Cover a few complex use cases", () => {
     const output = await processString(input, {})
     expect(output).toBe(input)
   })
+
+  it("getting a nice date from the user", async () => {
+    const input = {text: `{{ date user.subscriptionDue "DD-MM" }}`}
+    const context = JSON.parse(`{"user":{"email":"test@test.com","roleId":"ADMIN","type":"user","tableId":"ta_users","subscriptionDue":"2021-01-12T12:00:00.000Z","_id":"ro_ta_users_us_test@test.com","_rev":"2-24cc794985eb54183ecb93e148563f3d"}}`)
+    const output = await processObject(input, context)
+    expect(output.text).toBe("12-01")
+  })
 })

packages/string-templates/yarn.lock

@@ -1596,6 +1596,11 @@ date.js@^0.3.1:
   dependencies:
     debug "~3.1.0"
 
+dayjs@^1.10.4:
+  version "1.10.4"
+  resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/dayjs/-/dayjs-1.10.4.tgz#8e544a9b8683f61783f570980a8a80eaf54ab1e2"
+  integrity sha512-RI/Hh4kqRc1UKLOAf/T5zdMMX5DQIlDxwUe3wSyMMnEbGunnpENCdbUgM+dW7kXidZqCttBrmw7BhN4TMddkCw==
+
 debug@^2.2.0, debug@^2.3.3:
   version "2.6.9"
   resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/debug/-/debug-2.6.9.tgz#5d128515df134ff327e90a4c93f4e077a536341f"