MDL-81074 core: Add assertTimeStringMatches PHPUnit Assertion

Also raised as https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/phpunit/issues/5757

lib/phpunit/classes/base_testcase.php

@@ -121,6 +121,31 @@ abstract class base_testcase extends PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase {
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     }
 
+    /**
+     * Assert that two Date/Time strings are equal.
+     *
+     * The strings generated by \DateTime, \strtotime, \date, \time, etc. are generated outside of our control.
+     * From time-to-time string changes are made.
+     * One such example is from ICU 72.1 which changed the time format to include a narrow-non-breaking-space (U+202F)
+     * between the time and AM/PM.
+     *
+     * We should not update our tests to match these changes, as it is not our code that is
+     * generating the strings and they may change again.
+     * In addition, the changes are not equal amongst all systems as they depend on the version of ICU installed.
+     *
+     * @param string $expected
+     * @param string $actual
+     * @param string $message
+     */
+    public function assertEqualsIgnoringWhitespace($expected, $actual, string $message = ''): void {
+        // ICU 72.1 introduced the use of a narrow-non-breaking-space (U+202F) between the time and the AM/PM.
+        // Normalise all whitespace when performing the comparison.
+        $expected = preg_replace('/\s+/u', ' ', $expected);
+        $actual = preg_replace('/\s+/u', ' ', $actual);
+
+        $this->assertEquals($expected, $actual, $message);
+    }
+
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      *