This fix 23 languages and breaks (add extra spaces) over 750 languages. I think this is unacceptable.
Perhaps we could take the format of the current culture and calculate its size dynamically.

Is this more along the lines of what you were thinking?

Is this works for all cultures?

Full list unique formats you can get with:

(Get-Culture -ListAvailable).DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern | Sort -Unique

I'm having trouble building the project as it is. I opened it in the provided container, installed the suggested extensions, rebased my work on latest master, set PS as the default project, run the build task, and it fails to compile.

VERBOSE: Using default feeds which are Microsoft, use -UseNuGetOrg to switch to Public feeds
VERBOSE: In Find-DotNet
VERBOSE: Executing:  dotnet --list-sdks 
VERBOSE: Find-DotNet: dotnetCLIInstalledVersion = 10.0.100-rc.1.25451.107; chosenDotNetVersion = 10.0.100-rc.1.25451.107
VERBOSE: Using configuration 'Debug'
VERBOSE: Using framework 'net10.0'
VERBOSE: Using runtime 'linux-x64'
VERBOSE: Top project directory is /PowerShell/src/powershell-unix
VERBOSE: Building without shim
Run dotnet publish /property:GenerateFullPaths=true /property:ErrorOnDuplicatePublishOutputFiles=false --output /PowerShell/debug --self-contained /property:IsWindows=false /property:AppDeployment=SelfContained --configuration Debug --framework net10.0 --runtime linux-x64 /property:SDKToUse=Microsoft.NET.Sdk from /PowerShell/src/powershell-unix
  PSVersionInfoGenerator succeeded (1.4s) → /PowerShell/src/System.Management.Automation/SourceGenerators/PSVersionInfoGenerator/bin/Debug/netstandard2.0/SMA.Generator.dll
  System.Management.Automation failed with 57 error(s) (17.3s)
    /PowerShell/src/System.Management.Automation/engine/hostifaces/HostUtilities.cs(100,70): error CS0117: 'SuggestionStrings' does not contain a definition for 'Suggestion_CommandExistsInCurrentDirectory_Legacy'
    /PowerShell/src/System.Management.Automation/engine/CommandCompletion/CompletionCompleters.cs(6241,47): error CS0117: 'TabCompletionStrings' does not contain a definition for 'RequiresModulesParameterDescription'
    /PowerShell/src/System.Management.Automation/engine/CommandCompletion/CompletionCompleters.cs(6242,49): error CS0117: 'TabCompletionStrings' does not contain a definition for 'RequiresPSEditionParameterDescription'
    /PowerShell/src/System.Management.Automation/engine/CommandCompletion/CompletionCompleters.cs(6243,58): error CS0117: 'TabCompletionStrings' does not contain a definition for 'RequiresRunAsAdministratorParameterDescription'

I don't really know how to fix this.

Start-PSBuild -ResGen

I have done extensive testing for all locales, not just those with the latin alphabet. I have managed to all non-Arabic locales, which is an improvement, albeit not a complete solution. Arabic locales are currently broken on Unix even without this change, so if nothing else, it doesn't make things worse.

The current strategy of trying to devise the width of the table statically is kind-of backwards. Trying to relate the ShortDatePattern (The {0:d} part of the format string) to the resulting string seems kind-of underwhelming too, because a lot of locales have singular day and month designators/specifiers, which results in shorter anticipated date lengths than the actual ones, even if a single entry in a folder was last written on a day or month with double digits. Some locales even incorporate the era name in their ShortDatePattern which make things even more complicated.

I tested using this PS script:

(Get-Culture -ListAvailable) | % { if ([String]::Format( $_, '{0:d} {0:HH}:{0:mm}', (Get-Date)).Length -gt ($_.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern.Length + (($_.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern.ToCharArray() | where {$_ -eq 'd'}).count -eq 1 ? 1 : 0 ) + (($_.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern.ToCharArray() | where {$_ -eq 'M'}).count -eq 1 ? 1 : 0 ) + (($_.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern.ToCharArray() | where {$_ -eq 'g'}).count -eq 1 ? ($_.DateTimeFormat.GetEraName("1").Length + 1) : 0) + 6)) { Write-Host $_.Name 'has pattern:' $_.DateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern } }

which is the PS port of the C# logic found in the PR. Only Arabic locales fall short in terms of the calculated column widths. The remaining issue must lie with right justification/alignment, but I can't figure out why the output is garbled the way it is.

Hmm, why not test real value? I mean evaluate something like Datetime.Utc.ToString().Length.

@iSazonov Indeed, that gave a good idea. Utc has seconds at the end, it's length is not fixed... BUT, all I really needed was the longest possible time string formatted as {0:d} {0:HH}:{0:mm} in the current locale. Enter Calendar.MaxSupportedDateTime 🎆. It is guaranteed to have as many year, month, day, hour and minutes digits as possible.