Skip to content

Decode category/tag strings before grouping in report layout#85603

Draft
MelvinBot wants to merge 1 commit intomainfrom
claude-fixCategoryGroupingEncoding
Draft

Decode category/tag strings before grouping in report layout#85603
MelvinBot wants to merge 1 commit intomainfrom
claude-fixCategoryGroupingEncoding

Conversation

@MelvinBot
Copy link
Contributor

Explanation of Change

When expenses share the same category but are stored with different HTML encodings (e.g., Uber & car washes vs Uber & car washes), the report view in New Expensify displays them as two separate category groups — even though they look identical. This happens because groupTransactionsByCategory in ReportLayoutUtils.ts uses the raw category string as the Map key for grouping, but displays the HTML-decoded name. Different code paths (MCC auto-categorization vs. distance default category) can produce the same category name with different HTML encoding, particularly for the & character.

The fix decodes the category string before using it as the grouping key, so that & and & resolve to the same group. The same fix is applied to groupTransactionsByTag for consistency. This matches how OldDot already handles this in lib_report.js with _.unescape().

Fixed Issues

$ https://github.com/Expensify/Expensify/issues/612034

Tests

  1. Create an expense report with two expenses that share the same category name, where one has an HTML-encoded & in the category string and the other has a literal &
  2. Open the report in New Expensify with "Group by Category" enabled
  3. Verify both expenses appear in a single category group (not two separate groups)
  4. Repeat for tags with HTML-encoded characters to verify they also group correctly
  • Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

N/A — this change is purely about how transactions are grouped in memory for display. Offline behavior is unchanged.

QA Steps

  1. Find or create a report where the same category contains an & character (e.g., "Auto - 6340 (including Tolls, Parking, Uber & car washes)")
  2. Add both distance expenses and card expenses to the same category
  3. Open the report in New Expensify with "Group by Category" enabled
  4. Verify all expenses under the same category appear in a single group with a combined total
  • Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

  • I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
  • I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
    • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
    • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
    • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
    • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
    • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
    • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
  • I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
  • I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
    • Android: Native
    • Android: mWeb Chrome
    • iOS: Native
    • iOS: mWeb Safari
    • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
  • I verified there are no console errors (if there's a console error not related to the PR, report it or open an issue for it to be fixed)
  • I followed proper code patterns (see Reviewing the code)
    • I verified that any callback methods that were added or modified are named for what the method does and never what callback they handle (i.e. toggleReport and not onIconClick)
    • I verified that comments were added to code that is not self explanatory
    • I verified that any new or modified comments were clear, correct English, and explained "why" the code was doing something instead of only explaining "what" the code was doing.
    • I verified any copy / text shown in the product is localized by adding it to src/languages/* files and using the translation method
      • If any non-english text was added/modified, I used JaimeGPT to get English > Spanish translation. I then posted it in #expensify-open-source and it was approved by an internal Expensify engineer. Link to Slack message:
    • I verified all numbers, amounts, dates and phone numbers shown in the product are using the localization methods
    • I verified any copy / text that was added to the app is grammatically correct in English. It adheres to proper capitalization guidelines (note: only the first word of header/labels should be capitalized), and is either coming verbatim from figma or has been approved by marketing (in order to get marketing approval, ask the Bug Zero team member to add the Waiting for copy label to the issue)
    • I verified proper file naming conventions were followed for any new files or renamed files. All non-platform specific files are named after what they export and are not named "index.js". All platform-specific files are named for the platform the code supports as outlined in the README.
    • I verified the JSDocs style guidelines (in STYLE.md) were followed
  • If a new code pattern is added I verified it was agreed to be used by multiple Expensify engineers
  • I followed the guidelines as stated in the Review Guidelines
  • I tested other components that can be impacted by my changes (i.e. if the PR modifies a shared library or component like Avatar, I verified the components using Avatar are working as expected)
  • I verified all code is DRY (the PR doesn't include any logic written more than once, with the exception of tests)
  • I verified any variables that can be defined as constants (ie. in CONST.ts or at the top of the file that uses the constant) are defined as such
  • I verified that if a function's arguments changed that all usages have also been updated correctly
  • If any new file was added I verified that:
    • The file has a description of what it does and/or why is needed at the top of the file if the code is not self explanatory
  • If a new CSS style is added I verified that:
    • A similar style doesn't already exist
    • The style can't be created with an existing StyleUtils function (i.e. StyleUtils.getBackgroundAndBorderStyle(theme.componentBG))
  • If new assets were added or existing ones were modified, I verified that:
    • The assets are optimized and compressed (for SVG files, run npm run compress-svg)
    • The assets load correctly across all supported platforms.
  • If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
  • If the PR modifies a generic component, I tested and verified that those changes do not break usages of that component in the rest of the App (i.e. if a shared library or component like Avatar is modified, I verified that Avatar is working as expected in all cases)
  • If the PR modifies a component related to any of the existing Storybook stories, I tested and verified all stories for that component are still working as expected.
  • If the PR modifies a component or page that can be accessed by a direct deeplink, I verified that the code functions as expected when the deeplink is used - from a logged in and logged out account.
  • If the PR modifies the UI (e.g. new buttons, new UI components, changing the padding/spacing/sizing, moving components, etc) or modifies the form input styles:
    • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
    • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
  • If a new page is added, I verified it's using the ScrollView component to make it scrollable when more elements are added to the page.
  • I added unit tests for any new feature or bug fix in this PR to help automatically prevent regressions in this user flow.
  • If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

N/A — no UI changes, logic-only fix in grouping utility

Android: mWeb Chrome

N/A — no UI changes, logic-only fix in grouping utility

iOS: Native

N/A — no UI changes, logic-only fix in grouping utility

iOS: mWeb Safari

N/A — no UI changes, logic-only fix in grouping utility

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

N/A — no UI changes, logic-only fix in grouping utility

Transactions with the same category but different HTML encoding (e.g.,
Uber & car washes vs Uber & car washes) were being grouped
separately in the expense report view, despite displaying the same
group name. This happened because the raw category string was used as
the Map key for grouping, while the displayed name was HTML-decoded.

Now we decode category/tag strings before using them as grouping keys,
matching how OldDot already handles this in lib_report.js.

Related Expensify/Expensify#612034

Co-authored-by: Lydia Barclay <lydiabarclay@users.noreply.github.com>
@MelvinBot MelvinBot requested a review from a team March 17, 2026 22:03
@MelvinBot
Copy link
Contributor Author

The failing build (Debug, true) check is unrelated to this PR — it's a transient infrastructure issue.

Root cause: The Grails Maven repository (repo.grails.org) returned HTTP 520 (Cloudflare server error), which prevented Gradle from resolving org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib:2.1.20. This cascaded into 244+ dependency resolution failures.

Evidence: This PR only modifies TypeScript files (src/libs/ReportLayoutUtils.ts and tests/unit/ReportLayoutUtilsTest.ts) — it has no impact on Android build configuration or dependencies.

Recommendation: Re-run the failed build (Debug, true) check. The repository outage should be transient.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

2 participants