gettext - gettext for Ruby

NOTE: Gettext gem 3.0.0 removed many deprecated APIs and improves internal APIs. We want to keep backward compatibility as much as possible but some existing codes may be broken by gettext gem API change. If your code breaks by gettext gem 3.0.0, please report your problem. We will fix the problem and release a new version.

github.com/ruby-gettext/gettext is the official gettext gem repository. It is moved from github.com/mutoh/gettext . Mutoh agreed with the move.

Gettext gem is a pure Ruby Localization(L10n) library and tool which is modeled after the GNU gettext package.

This library was called as “Ruby-GetText-Package”. Since 2.3.0, this library is called just “gettext”. You can call this library as “gettext gem” or “Ruby gettext” to distinguish from GNU gettext.

This library translates original messages to localized messages using client-side locale information(environment variable or CGI variable).

The tools for developers support creating, useing, and modifying localized message files(message catalogs).

((Rails)) Rails support has been removed.

Website

Features

  • Translate singular/plural messages with simple APIs(similar to GNU gettext)

  • Thread safety. Message resources are shared from all threads, but returns translated messages of the current thread’s locale.

  • Tools to find message IDs

    • Extract message IDs to po-files using rxgettext from

      • ruby scripts

      • glade-2 XML file(.glade)

      • ERB file(.rhtml, .erb)

      • Anything (with your own parsers)

      • The po-files are compatible to GNU gettext.

    • rmsgfmt creates a mo-file from a po-file. The mo-file is compatible to GNU gettext(msgfmt).

    • Using rxgettext/rmsgfmt as Rake tasks

  • textdomain’s scope is adapt to ruby class/module mechanism.

    • A class/module can have plural textdomains.

    • a message is looked up in its class/module and ancestors.

  • CGI support (gettext/cgi)

    • Locale is retrieved from client informations using Ruby-Locale. (HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE, HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET, QUERY_STRING(lang), Cookies(lang)).

Requirements

Install

  • Uninstall old gettext if exists. (You need to do this when updating 1.93.0 -> 2.0.1)

    (sudo/su on POSIX system)
    gem uninstall gettext
    
  • gem

    #from rubyforge
    (sudo/su on POSIX system)
    gem install gettext
    
  • download tar-ball

    # De-Compress archive and enter its top directory.
    (sudo/su on POSIX system)
    ruby setup.rb
    

You can also install files in your favorite directory by supplying setup.rb some options. Try ruby setup.rb --help.

Usage

Translation

  • _: Basic translation method Translates the message.

    _("Hello")
    

The gettext methods comes in 3 combinable flavors

  • n: Pluralized Returns singular or plural form, depending on how many you have.

    n_("Apple", "%{num} Apples", 3)
    n_(["Apple", "%{num} Apples"], 3)
    
  • p: context aware A context is a prefix to your translation, usefull when one word has different meanings, depending on its context.

    p_("Printer","Open") <=> p_("File","Open")
    is the same as s_("Printer|Open")  <=> s_("File|Open")
    
  • s: without context If a translation could not be found, return the msgid without context.

    s_("Printer|Open") => "Öffnen" #translation found
    s_("Printer|Open") => "Open"   #translation not found
    
  • combinations

    np_("Fruit", "Apple", "%{num} Apples", 3)
    ns_("Fruit|Apple","%{num} Apples", 3)
    
    np_(["Fruit","Apple","%{num} Apples"], 3)
    ns_(["Fruit|Apple","%{num} Apples"], 3)
    
  • N_, Nn_: Makes dynamic translation messages readable for the gettext parser. _(fruit) cannot be understood by the gettext parser. To help the parser find all your translations, you can add fruit = N_("Apple") which does not translate, but tells the parser: “Apple” needs translation.

    fruit = N_("Apple")   # same as fruit = "Apple"
    _(fruit)              # does a normal translation
    
    fruits = Nn_("Apple", "%{num} Apples")
    n_(fruits, 3)
    

Bind textdomains to the classes.

A textdomain has a translation file in each language. A module/class can have multi textdomains. This means the libraries/applications can have their own textdomains.

class Foo
  include GetText
  bindtextdomain "your_app_domain_name"
end

class Book
  include GetText
  bindtextdomain "general"
  bindtextdomain "book"
end

Locale

If you need to set the locale by yourself, then use:

GetText.locale = "en_US" # translate into english from now on
GetText.locale # => en_US

Or

include GetText
set_locale "en_US"

For more details and options, have a look at the samples folder or consult the tutorial.

License

This program is licenced under the same licence as Ruby(See doc/text/ruby-license.txt) or LGPL(Lesser General Public License: doc/text/lgpl-3.0.txt or www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.txt).

  • mofile.rb

    • Copyright © 2001-2009 Masao Mutoh <mutoh at highwhay.ne.jp>

    • Copyright © 2001,2002 Masahiro Sakai <s01397ms at sfc.keio.ac.jp>

  • gettext.rb

    • Copyright © 2001-2009 Masao Mutoh <mutoh at highwhay.ne.jp>

    • Copyright © 2001,2002 Masahiro Sakai <s01397ms at sfc.keio.ac.jp>

  • rxgettext

    • Copyright © 2001-2009 Masao Mutoh <mutoh at highwhay.ne.jp>

    • Copyright © 2001,2002 Yasushi Shoji <yashi at atmark-techno.com>

  • Others

    • Copyright © 2001-2009 Masao Mutoh <mutoh at highwhay.ne.jp>

Translators

  • Bosnian(bs) - Sanjin Sehic <saserr at gmail.com>

  • Bulgarian(bg) - Sava Chankov <sava.chankov at gmail.com>

  • Catalan(ca) - Ramon Salvadó <rsalvado at gnuine.com>

  • Chinese(Simplified)(zh_CN)

    • Yang Bob <bob.yang.dev at gmail.com> (current)

    • Yingfeng <blogyingfeng at gmail.com>

  • Chinese(Traditional)(zh_TW)

    • Yang Bob <bob.yang.dev at gmail.com> (current)

    • LIN CHUNG-YI <xmarsh at gmail.com>

  • Croatian(hr) - Sanjin Sehic <saserr at gmail.com>

  • Czech(cs) - Karel Miarka <kajism at yahoo.com>

  • Dutch(nl) - Menno Jonkers <ruby-gettext at jonkers.com>

  • Esperanto(eo) - Malte Milatz <malte at gmx-topmail.de>

  • Estonian(et) - Erkki Eilonen <erkki at itech.ee>

  • French(fr)

    • Vincent Isambart <vincent.isambart at gmail.com> (current)

    • David Sulc <davidsulc at gmail.com>

    • Laurent Sansonetti <laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com>

  • German(de)

    • Patrick Lenz <patrick at limited-overload.de> (current)

    • Detlef Reichl <detlef.reichl at gmx.org>

    • Sven Herzberg <herzi at abi02.de>

    • Sascha Ebach <se at digitale-wertschoepfung.de>

  • Greek(el) - Vassilis Rizopoulos <damphyr at gmx.net>

  • Hungarian(hu) - Tamás Tompa <tompata at gmail.com>

  • Italian(it)

    • Marco Lazzeri <marco.lazzeri at gmail.com>

    • Gabriele Renzi <surrender_it at yahoo.it>

  • Japanese(ja) - Masao Mutoh <mutomasa at gmail.com>

  • Korean(ko) - Gyoung-Yoon Noh <nohmad at gmail.com>

  • Latvian(lv) - Aivars Akots <aivars.akots at gmail.com>

  • Norwegian(nb) - Runar Ingebrigtsen <runar at mopo.no>

  • Portuguese(Brazil)(pt_BR)

    • Antonio S. de A. Terceiro <terceiro at softwarelivre.org> (current)

    • Joao Pedrosa <joaopedrosa at gmail.com>

  • Russian(ru) - Yuri Kozlov <kozlov.y at gmail.com>

  • Serbian(sr) - Slobodan Paunović“ <slobodan.paunovic at gmail.com>

  • Spanish(es)

    • David Espada <davinci at escomposlinux.org> (current)

    • David Moreno Garza <damog at damog.net>

  • Swedish(sv) - Nikolai Weibull <mailing-lists.ruby-talk at rawuncut.elitemail.org>

  • Ukrainian(uk) - Alex Rootoff <rootoff at pisem.net>

  • Vietnamese(vi) - Ngoc Dao Thanh <ngocdaothanh at gmail.com>

Status of translations

  • Bosnian(bs) - 1.90.0 (old)

  • Bulgarian(bg) - 2.0.1

  • Catalan(ca) - 2.0.1

  • Croatian(hr) - 1.90.0 (old)

  • Chinese(zh_CN) - 2.0.1

  • Chinese(zh_TW) - 2.0.1

  • Czech(cs) - 1.9.0 (old)

  • Dutch(nl) - 1.90.0 (old)

  • English(default) - 2.1.0

  • Esperanto(eo) - 2.0.1

  • Estonian(et) - 2.0.1

  • French(fr) - 2.0.1

  • German(de) - 2.0.1

  • Greek(el) - 2.0.1

  • Hungarian(hu) - 2.0.1

  • Italian(it) - 1.6.0 (old)

  • Japanese(ja) - 2.1.0

  • Korean(ko) - 1.9.0 (old)

  • Latvian(lv) - 2.0.1

  • Norwegian(nb) - 2.0.1

  • Portuguese(Brazil)(pt_BR) - 2.0.1

  • Russian(ru) - 2.0.1

  • Serbian(sr) - 2.0.1

  • Spanish(es) - 2.0.1

  • Swedish(sv) - 0.8.0 (too much old)

  • Ukrainian(uk) - 2.0.1

  • Vietnamese(vi) - 2.0.1

Maintainer

Old maintainer

  • Masao Mutoh <mutomasa at gmail.com>