[$500] Mention disappears when including 's

[m-natarajan]

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Version Number: 9.0.48-0
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail:
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: @flodnv
Slack conversation: https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C049HHMV9SM/p1728591305161159

Action Performed:

1. Type something @user in a room (the mention must be the short version without the email part)
2. This inserts something @user with a trailing space
3. Remove the trailing space with the backspace key, add a 's

Expected Result:

The @mentioned user is highlighted in the sent message as something @user's

Actual Result:

The @user part is not marked as a mention and message is sent as plain text

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Which of our officially supported platforms is this issue occurring on?

• Android: Native
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Native
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

Recording.654.mp4

Add any screenshot/video evidence

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• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021845828693936391795
• Upwork Job ID: 1845828693936391795
• Last Price Increase: 2025-03-11

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @shubham1206agra

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @mallenexpensify (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021845828693936391795

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @shubham1206agra (External)

[bernhardoj]

Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2024-10-14 14:27:47 UTC.

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Mention doesn't work when the mention has '.

What is the root cause of that problem?

Looks like this only happens on short mentions. When we do a complete mention, for example, @bernhard.josephus@gmail.com's, only @bernhard.josephus@gmail.com is matched as the mention, and 's is treated as a normal text.

But when we do short mentions, for example, @bernhard.josephus's, all text is matched as a mention. That's because the regex accepts '.

App/src/CONST.ts

Line 2754 in 0bb5806

SHORT_MENTION: new RegExp(`@[\\w\\-\\+\\'#@]+(?:\\.[\\w\\-\\'\\+]+)*(?![^\`]*\`)`, 'gim'),

Based on this SO, ' is a valid character for an email before the @ character.

And because there is no contact with an email that contains ', the full mention can't be built.

App/src/libs/ReportUtils.ts

Lines 4176 to 4178 in 0bb5806

	const mention = match.substring(1);
	const mentionWithDomain = addDomainToShortMention(mention);
	return mentionWithDomain ? `@${mentionWithDomain}` : match;

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

If we don't want to accept ' as part of the short mention, then we can remove it from the regex.

App/src/CONST.ts

Line 2754 in 0bb5806

SHORT_MENTION: new RegExp(`@[\\w\\-\\+\\'#@]+(?:\\.[\\w\\-\\'\\+]+)*(?![^\`]*\`)`, 'gim'),

[flodnv]

What if the short mention has an ' in it?

[mallenexpensify]

Was able to reproduce, i wonder if this is a bug or new feature. Meaning... was this ever discussed before, where we decide NOT to tag a user with 's at the end of their handle. (guessing not, just seems like it's worked this way from the start)

[bernhardoj]

@flodnv if the email has ' in it, then it won't be converted to a mention. The user needs to type the full mention. But I just tested that our full user mention regex can't match either if there is ' in it.

[shoibsq]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Mention is not working with possessive forms like 's

What is the root cause of that problem?

Regex is not handling Possessive forms

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Updating Regex to handle Apostrophes, Email Mentions, and Possessives.

SHORT_MENTION: new RegExp(`@[\\w\\-\\+#']+(?:\\.[\\w\\-\\+#']+)*(?:@[\\w\\-]+\\.[a-z]{2,})?(?![^\`]*\`)(?=\\b|'s)`, 'gim'),

Details on updating regex :

1. Handling Apostrophes in Mentions: @[\w\-\+#']+ allows apostrophes (') inside mentions.
2. Handling Dot-separated Parts: (?:\.[\w\-\+#']+)* matches additional parts like @user.name.
3. Handling Email Mentions: (?:@[\w\-]+\.[a-z]{2,})? allows optional email-style mentions like @bernha'ard.josephus@gmail.com.
4. Handling Word Boundary and Possessive 's: The lookahead (?=\b|'s) ensures that mentions are valid when followed by a word boundary (space or punctuation) or possessive 's.

[melvin-bot]

@mallenexpensify, @shubham1206agra Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!

[shubham1206agra]

@mallenexpensify I don't think we can omit ' from the short mention check. We must find another solution to this problem since slack has no problem handling it.

[bernhardoj]

Does Slack have a short mention?

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[mallenexpensify]

I'm uncertain of the Slack's logic or exactly how they handle it, check the vid below

2024-10-21_17-32-31.mp4

[melvin-bot]

@mallenexpensify, @shubham1206agra Whoops! This issue is 2 days overdue. Let's get this updated quick!

[melvin-bot]

@mallenexpensify, @shubham1206agra Eep! 4 days overdue now. Issues have feelings too...

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[melvin-bot]

@mallenexpensify @shubham1206agra this issue was created 2 weeks ago. Are we close to approving a proposal? If not, what's blocking us from getting this issue assigned? Don't hesitate to create a thread in #expensify-open-source to align faster in real time. Thanks!

[melvin-bot]

@mallenexpensify, @shubham1206agra Now this issue is 8 days overdue. Are you sure this should be a Daily? Feel free to change it!

[mallenexpensify]

Added to #quality project, assuming that user's would expect this to work (I do think adding 's after a user's handle, ie. @flodnv's , is common (as in Slack and GH). Gonna bump to $500 to get more 👀 and proposals.

[melvin-bot]

@mallenexpensify, @shubham1206agra 12 days overdue now... This issue's end is nigh!

[mallenexpensify]

Updated internal chat...

[melvin-bot]

This issue has not been updated in over 14 days. @mallenexpensify, @shubham1206agra eroding to Weekly issue.

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[mallenexpensify]

@shubham1206agra did you want to purchase a domain to use for testing and we'll reimburse you for it?

[shubham1206agra]

@mallenexpensify Actually I posted a thread some time back here https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C01GTK53T8Q/p1737029721455129

[mallenexpensify]

d'oh, thanks for sharing the link, def missed it before

I have also discussed this issue with @Kicu in length, and the best solution for now is to get short mention running when ' is present (might point to wrong user, but it is better to point to no one at all, which is the current behavior).

Is that how Slack does it? Appears to be

In GH, once you add the ` then no selection shows.

I think the more import part of the bug is that when `s is added at the end of a tagged name, the handle still shows, vs not.

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[NJ-2020]

Any updates?

cc: @shubham1206agra

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[NJ-2020]

Any updates?

[shubham1206agra]

@NJ-2020 Not yet. We are working on Expensify/expensify-common#824 first. Then, we will circle back here.

[NJ-2020]

Thanks

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[mallenexpensify]

• Add handling short mentions tags to ExpensiMark expensify-common#824 (comment)
  The above is merged. Can we proceed here @shubham1206agra ?

[shubham1206agra]

Sorry, we are waiting for version bump in #54037.

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸