Export i18n translations to JSON.
A perfect fit if you want to export translations to JavaScript.

Oh, you don't use Ruby? No problem! You can still use i18n-js
and the companion JavaScript package.

Installation

gem install i18n-js

Or add the following line to your project's Gemfile:

gem "i18n-js"

Create a default configuration file in ./config/i18n.yml

i18n init

Usage

About patterns:

• Patterns can use * as a wildcard and can appear more than once.
  • * will include everything
  • *.messages.*
• Patterns starting with ! are excluded.
  • !*.activerecord.* will exclude all ActiveRecord translations.
• You can use groups:
  • {pt-BR,en}.js.* will include only pt-BR and en translations, even if more languages are available.

[!NOTE]

Patterns use glob, so check it out for the most up-to-date documentation about what's available.

The config file:

---
translations:
  - file: app/frontend/locales/en.json
    patterns:
      - "*"
      - "!*.activerecord.*"
      - "!*.errors.*"
      - "!*.number.nth.*"

  - file: app/frontend/locales/:locale.:digest.json
    patterns:
      - "*"

The output path can use the following placeholders:

• :locale - the language that's being exported.
• :digest - the MD5 hex digest of the exported file.

The example above could generate a file named app/frontend/locales/en.7bdc958e33231eafb96b81e3d108eff3.json.

The config file is processed as erb, so you can have dynamic content on it if you want. The following example shows how to use groups from a variable.

---
<% group = "{en,pt}" %>

translations:
  - file: app/frontend/translations.json
    patterns:
      - "<%= group %>.*"
      - "!<%= group %>.activerecord.*"
      - "!<%= group %>.errors.*"
      - "!<%= group %>.number.nth.*"

Exporting locale.yml to locale.json

Your i18n yaml file can be exported to JSON using the Ruby API or the command line utility. Examples of both approaches are provided below:

The Ruby API:

require "i18n-js"

# The following call performs the same task as the CLI `i18n export` command
I18nJS.call(config_file: "config/i18n.yml")

# You can provide the config directly using the following
config = {
  "translations"=>[
    {"file"=>"app/javascript/locales/:locale.json", "patterns"=>["*"]}
  ]
}

I18nJS.call(config: config)
#=> ["app/javascript/locales/de.json", "app/javascript/locales/en.json"]

The CLI API:

$ i18n --help
Usage: i18n COMMAND FLAGS

Commands:

- init: Initialize a project
- export: Export translations as JSON files
- version: Show package version
- plugins: List plugins that will be activated
- lint:translations: Check for missing translations
- lint:scripts: Lint files using TypeScript

Run `i18n COMMAND --help` for more information on specific commands.

By default, i18n will use config/i18n.yml and config/environment.rb as the configuration files. If you don't have these files, then you'll need to specify both --config and --require.

Plugins

Built-in plugins:

embed_fallback_translations:

Embed fallback translations into each locale. This can be useful in cases where you have multiple large translation files and don't want to load the default locale together with the target locale.

When I18n.fallbacks is configured (e.g. via I18n::Backend::Fallbacks or Rails' config.i18n.fallbacks), the full fallback chain is respected. For example, if es falls back to pt which falls back to en, missing es translations are first filled from pt, then from en. When I18n.fallbacks is not configured, translations fall back directly to I18n.default_locale.

To use it, add the following to your configuration file:

---
pipeline:
  - plugin: embed_fallback_translations
    enabled: true

[!NOTE]

I18n.fallbacks=(*) is weird. The most common way of using it is with I18n.fallbacks[:es] = [:pt, :en] and I18n.fallbacks = I18n::Locale::Fallbacks(default_locale, hash_map). If you assign just a hash, no error will be raised, but it's not the correct behavior, and you'll get a hash back, rather than a I18n::Locale::Fallbacks instance.

When assigning an array, remember to pass the default locale as the last argument, as precedence is from left to right.

export_files:

By default, i18n-js will export only JSON files out of your translations. This plugin allows exporting other file formats. To use it, add the following to your configuration file:

---
pipeline:
  - plugin: export_files
    enabled: true
    files:
      - template: path/to/template.erb
        output: "%{dir}/%{base_name}.ts"

You can export multiple files by defining more entries.

The output name can use the following placeholders:

• %{dir}: the directory where the translation file is.
• %{name}: file name with extension.
• %{base_name}: file name without extension.
• %{digest}: MD5 hexdigest from the generated file.

The template file must be a valid eRB template. You can execute arbitrary Ruby code, so be careful. An example of how you can generate a file can be seen below:

/* eslint-disable */
<%= banner %>

import { i18n } from "config/i18n";

i18n.store(<%= JSON.pretty_generate(translations) %>);

This template is loading the instance from config/i18n and storing the translations that have been loaded. The banner(comment: "// ", include_time: true) method is built-in. The generated file will look something like this:

/* eslint-disable */
// File generated by i18n-js on 2022-12-10 15:37:00 +0000

import { i18n } from "config/i18n";

i18n.store({
  en: {
    "bunny rabbit adventure": "bunny rabbit adventure",
    "hello sunshine!": "hello sunshine!",
    "time for bed!": "time for bed!",
  },
  es: {
    "bunny rabbit adventure": "conejito conejo aventura",
    bye: "adios",
    "time for bed!": "¡hora de acostarse!",
  },
  pt: {
    "bunny rabbit adventure": "a aventura da coelhinha",
    bye: "tchau",
    "time for bed!": "hora de dormir!",
  },
});

Plugin API

You can transform the exported translations by adding plugins. A plugin must inherit from I18nJS::Plugin and can override 4 instance methods (they're all optional and default to a noop implementation). For real examples, see lib/i18n-js/embed_fallback_translations_plugin.rb and lib/i18n-js/export_files_plugin.rb

# frozen_string_literal: true

module I18nJS
  class SamplePlugin < I18nJS::Plugin
    # This method is responsible for transforming the translations. The
    # translations you'll receive may already be filtered by other plugins
    # and by the default filtering itself. If you need to access the original
    # translations, use `I18nJS.translations`.
    def transform(translations:)
      # transform `translations` here…

      translations
    end

    # In case your plugin accepts configuration, this is where you must validate
    # it, making sure only valid keys and types are provided.
    # If the configuration contains invalid data, raise an exception using
    # `raise I18nJS::Schema::InvalidError, error_message`.
    # Paths passed to schema helpers are relative to the plugin's own config
    # root (i.e. the pipeline stage object, minus the `plugin:` key).
    def validate_schema
      # validate plugin schema here…
    end

    # Called after schema validation. Use this for any one-time plugin setup.
    def setup
    end

    # This method is called whenever `I18nJS.call(**kwargs)` finishes exporting
    # JSON files based on your configuration.
    #
    # You can use it to further process exported files, or generate new files
    # based on the translations that have been exported.
    def after_export(files:)
      # process exported files here…
    end
  end
end

The class I18nJS::Plugin exposes the following helpers:

• I18nJS::Plugin.key: the configuration key inferred from your plugin's class name (e.g. SamplePlugin → "sample"). Override this class method to use a custom key.
• I18nJS::Plugin#config: the plugin's own configuration hash (the pipeline stage entry, minus the plugin: key).
• I18nJS::Plugin#main_config: the full i18n-js configuration hash.
• I18nJS::Plugin#enabled?: whether the plugin is enabled based on config[:enabled].

Plugins are configured via the pipeline: array in the config file. Each entry must have a plugin: key matching Plugin.key and an enabled: boolean. Any additional keys in the stage are passed to the plugin as part of config.

pipeline:
  - plugin: sample
    enabled: true
    my_option: value

To distribute a plugin, create a gem whose load path contains a file matching the pattern i18n-js/*_plugin.rb. You can verify it will be found by running Gem.find_files("i18n-js/*_plugin.rb") in an IRB session after installing your gem.

Listing missing translations

To list missing and extraneous translations, you can use i18n lint:translations. This command will load your translations similarly to how i18n export does, but will output the list of keys that don't have a matching translation against the default locale. Here's an example:

$ i18n lint:translations
=> Config file: "./config/i18n.yml"
=> Require file: "./config/environment.rb"
=> Check "./config/i18n.yml" for ignored keys.
=> en: 232 translations
=> pt-BR: 5 missing, 1 extraneous, 1 ignored
   - pt-BR.actors.github.metrics (missing)
   - pt-BR.actors.github.metrics_hint (missing)
   - pt-BR.actors.github.repo_metrics (missing)
   - pt-BR.actors.github.repository (missing)
   - pt-BR.actors.github.user_metrics (missing)
   - pt-BR.github.repository (extraneous)

This command will exit(missing_count) whenever there are missing translations. This way you can use it as a CI linting tool.

You can ignore keys by adding a list to the config file:

---
translations:
  - file: app/frontend/locales/en.json
    patterns:
      - "*"
      - "!*.activerecord.*"
      - "!*.errors.*"
      - "!*.number.nth.*"

  - file: app/frontend/locales/:locale.:digest.json
    patterns:
      - "*"

lint_translations:
  ignore:
    - "*.mailer.login.subject"
    - "*.mailer.login.body"

Linting your JavaScript/TypeScript files

To lint your script files and check for missing translations (which can signal that you're either using wrong scopes or forgot to add the translation), use i18n lint:scripts. This command will parse your JavaScript/TypeScript files and extract all scopes being used. This command requires a Node.js runtime. You can either specify one via --node-path, or let the plugin infer a binary from your $PATH.

The comparison will be made against the export JSON files, which means it'll consider transformations performed by plugins (e.g. the output files may be affected by embed_fallback_translations plugin).

The translations that will be extract must be called as one of the following ways:

• i18n.t(scope, options)
• i18n.translate(scope, options)
• t(scope, options)

Notice that only literal strings can be used, as in i18n.t("message"). If you're using dynamic scoping through variables (e.g. const scope = "message"; i18n.t(scope)), they will be skipped.

$ i18n lint:scripts
=> Config file: "./config/i18n.yml"
=> Require file: "./config/environment.rb"
=> Node: "/Users/fnando/.asdf/shims/node"
=> Available locales: [:en, :es, :pt]
=> Patterns: ["!(node_modules)/**/*.js", "!(node_modules)/**/*.ts", "!(node_modules)/**/*.jsx", "!(node_modules)/**/*.tsx"]
=> 9 translations, 11 missing, 4 ignored
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:1:1: en.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:1:1: es.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:1:1: pt.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:2:8: en.base.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:2:8: es.base.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:2:8: pt.base.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:4:8: en.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:4:8: es.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:4:8: pt.js.missing
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:6:1: en.another_ignore_scope
   - test/scripts/lint/file.js:6:1: es.another_ignore_scope

This command will list all locales and their missing translations. To avoid listing a particular translation, you can set lint_scripts.ignore or lint_translations.ignore in your config file.

---
translations:
  - file: app/frontend/translations.json
    patterns:
      - "*"

lint_scripts:
  ignore:
    - "*.ignore_scope" # will ignore this scope on all languages
    - pt.another_ignore_scope # will ignore this scope only on `pt`

You can also set the patterns that will be looked up. By default, it scans all JavaScript and TypeScript files that don't live on node_modules.

---
translations:
  - file: app/frontend/translations.json
    patterns:
      - "*"

lint_scripts:
  patterns:
    - "app/assets/**/*.ts"

Automatically export translations

Using watchman

Create a script at bin/i18n-watch.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

root=`pwd`

watchman watch-del "$root"
watchman watch-project "$root"
watchman trigger-del "$root" i18n

watchman -j <<-JSON
[
  "trigger",
  "$root",
  {
    "name": "i18n",
    "expression": [
      "anyof",
      ["match", "config/locales/**/*.yml", "wholename"],
      ["match", "config/i18n.yml", "wholename"]
    ],
    "command": ["i18n", "export"]
  }
]
JSON

# If you're running this through Foreman,
# then uncomment the following lines:
# while true; do
#   sleep 1
# done

Make it executable with chmod +x bin/i18n-watch. To watch for changes, run ./bin/i18n-watch. If you're using Foreman, make sure you uncommented the lines that keep the process running (while..), and add something like the following line to your Procfile:

i18n: ./bin/i18n-watch

Using guard

Install guard and guard-compat. Then create a Guardfile with the following configuration:

guard(:"i18n-js",
      run_on_start: true,
      config_file: "./config/i18n.yml",
      require_file: "./config/environment.rb") do
  watch(%r{^(app|config)/locales/.+\.(yml|po)$})
  watch(%r{^config/i18n.yml$})
  watch("Gemfile")
end

If your files are located in a different path, remember to configure file paths accordingly.

Now you can run guard start -i.

Using listen

Create a file under config/initializers/i18n.rb with the following content:

Rails.application.config.after_initialize do
  require "i18n-js/listen"
  I18nJS.listen
end

The code above will watch for changes based on config/i18n.yml and config/locales. You can customize these options:

• config_file - i18n-js configuration file
• locales_dir - one or multiple directories to watch for locales changes
• options - passed directly to listen
• run_on_start - export files on start. Defaults to true. When disabled, files will be exported only when there are file changes.

Example:

I18nJS.listen(
  config_file: "config/i18n.yml",
  locales_dir: ["config/locales", "app/views"],
  options: {only: %r{.yml$}},
  run_on_start: false
)

Integrating with your frontend

You're done exporting files, now what? Well, go to i18n to discover how to use the NPM package that loads all the exported translation.

FAQ

I'm running v3. Is there a migration plan?

There's a document outlining some of the things you need to do to migrate from v3 to v4. It may not be as complete as we'd like it to be, so let us know if you face any issues during the migration that is not outlined in that document.

How can I export translations without having a database around?

Some people may have a build process using something like Docker that don't necessarily have a database available. In this case, you may define your own loading file by using something like i18n export --require ./config/i18n_export.rb, where i18n_export.rb may look like this:

# frozen_string_literal: true

require "bundler/setup"
require "rails"
require "active_support/railtie"
require "action_view/railtie"

I18n.load_path += Dir["./config/locales/**/*.yml"]

[!NOTE]

You may not need to load the ActiveSupport and ActionView lines, or you may need to add additional requires for other libs. With this approach you have full control on what's going to be loaded.

Maintainer

• Nando Vieira

Contributors

• https://github.com/fnando/i18n-js/contributors

Contributing

For more details about how to contribute, please read https://github.com/fnando/i18n-js/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License. A copy of the license can be found at https://github.com/fnando/i18n-js/blob/main/LICENSE.md.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the i18n-js project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.