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<title>The Rails Internationalization (I18n) API</title>
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<h1 id="site_title"><span>Ruby on Rails</span></h1>
<h2 id="site_title_tagline">Sustainable productivity for web-application development</h2>
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<li class="first-child"><a href="http://www.rubyonrails.org/" title="Ruby on Rails" class="ruby_on_rails">Ruby on Rails</a></li>
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<h2>Chapters</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#_how_i18n_in_ruby_on_rails_works">How I18n in Ruby on Rails works</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#_the_overall_architecture_of_the_library">The overall architecture of the library</a></li>
<li><a href="#_the_public_i18n_api">The public I18n API</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_setup_the_rails_application_for_internationalization">Setup the Rails application for internationalization</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#_configure_the_i18n_module">Configure the I18n module</a></li>
<li><a href="#_optional_custom_i18n_configuration_setup">Optional: custom I18n configuration setup</a></li>
<li><a href="#_setting_and_passing_the_locale">Setting and passing the locale</a></li>
<li><a href="#_setting_locale_from_the_domain_name">Setting locale from the domain name</a></li>
<li><a href="#_setting_locale_from_the_url_params">Setting locale from the URL params</a></li>
<li><a href="#_setting_locale_from_the_client_supplied_information">Setting locale from the client supplied information</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_internationalizing_your_application">Internationalizing your application</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#_adding_translations">Adding Translations</a></li>
<li><a href="#_adding_date_time_formats">Adding Date/Time formats</a></li>
<li><a href="#_organization_of_locale_files">Organization of locale files</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_overview_of_the_i18n_api_features">Overview of the I18n API features</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#_looking_up_translations">Looking up translations</a></li>
<li><a href="#_interpolation">Interpolation</a></li>
<li><a href="#_pluralization">Pluralization</a></li>
<li><a href="#_setting_and_passing_a_locale">Setting and passing a locale</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_how_to_store_your_custom_translations">How to store your custom translations</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#_translations_for_active_record_models">Translations for Active Record models</a></li>
<li><a href="#_overview_of_other_built_in_methods_that_provide_i18n_support">Overview of other built-in methods that provide I18n support</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_customize_your_i18n_setup">Customize your I18n setup</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#_using_different_backends">Using different backends</a></li>
<li><a href="#_using_different_exception_handlers">Using different exception handlers</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_conclusion">Conclusion</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_contributing_to_rails_i18n">Contributing to Rails I18n</a>
</li>
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<a href="#_resources">Resources</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_authors">Authors</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_footnotes">Footnotes</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#_changelog">Changelog</a>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div id="content">
<h1>The Rails Internationalization (I18n) API</h1>
<div id="preamble">
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>The Ruby I18n (shorthand for <em>internationalization</em>) gem which is shipped with Ruby on Rails (starting from Rails 2.2) provides an easy-to-use and extensible framework for <strong>translating your application to a single custom language</strong> other than English or for <strong>providing multi-language support</strong> in your application.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The process of "internationalization" usually means to abstract all strings and other locale specific bits (such as date or currency formats) out of your application. The process of "localization" means to provide translations and localized formats for these bits. <a href="#1">[1]</a></p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>So, in the process of <em>internationalizing</em> your Rails application you have to:</p></div>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
Ensure you have support for i18n
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Tell Rails where to find locale dictionaries
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Tell Rails how to set, preserve and switch locale
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>In the process of <em>localizing</em> your application you’ll probably want to do following three things:</p></div>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
Replace or supplement Rail’s default locale — eg. date and time formats, month names, ActiveRecord model names, etc
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Abstract texts in your application into keyed dictionaries — eg. flash messages, static texts in your views, etc
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Store the resulting dictionaries somewhere
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This guide will walk you through the I18n API and contains a tutorial how to internationalize a Rails application from the start.</p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/note.png" alt="Note" />
</td>
<td class="content">The Ruby I18n framework provides you with all neccessary means for internationalization/localization of your Rails application. You may, however, use any of various plugins and extensions available, which add additional functionality or features. See Rails <a href="http://rails-i18n.org/wiki">I18n Wiki</a> for more information.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<h2 id="_how_i18n_in_ruby_on_rails_works">1. How I18n in Ruby on Rails works</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>Internationalization is a complex problem. Natural languages differ in so many ways (eg. in pluralization rules) that it is hard to provide tools for solving all problems at once. For that reason the Rails I18n API focuses on:</p></div>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
providing support for English and similar languages out of the box
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
making it easy to customize and extend everything for other languages
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>As part of this solution, <strong>every static string in the Rails framework</strong> — eg. Active Record validation messages, time and date formats — <strong>has been internationalized</strong>, so <em>localization</em> of a Rails application means "over-riding" these defaults.</p></div>
<h3 id="_the_overall_architecture_of_the_library">1.1. The overall architecture of the library</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Thus, the Ruby I18n gem is split into two parts:</p></div>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
The public API of the i18n framework — a Ruby module with public methods and definitions how the library works
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
A default backend (which is intentionally named <em>Simple</em> backend) that implements these methods
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>As a user you should always only access the public methods on the I18n module, but it is useful to know about the capabilities of the backend.</p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/note.png" alt="Note" />
</td>
<td class="content">It is possible (or even desirable) to swap the shipped Simple backend with a more powerful one, which would store translation data in a relational database, GetText dictionary, or similar. See section <a href="#_using_different_backends">Using different backends</a> below.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<h3 id="_the_public_i18n_api">1.2. The public I18n API</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The most important methods of the I18n API are:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>translate <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Lookup text translations</span></span>
localize <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Localize Date and Time objects to local formats</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>These have the aliases #t and #l so you can use them like this:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #FF0000">'store.title'</span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>l Time<span style="color: #990000">.</span>now</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>There are also attribute readers and writers for the following attributes:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>load_path <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Announce your custom translation files</span></span>
locale <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Get and set the current locale</span></span>
default_locale <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Get and set the default locale</span></span>
exception_handler <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Use a different exception_handler</span></span>
backend <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Use a different backend</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>So, let’s internationalize a simple Rails application from the ground up in the next chapters!</p></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_setup_the_rails_application_for_internationalization">2. Setup the Rails application for internationalization</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>There are just a few, simple steps to get up and running with I18n support for your application.</p></div>
<h3 id="_configure_the_i18n_module">2.1. Configure the I18n module</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Following the <em>convention over configuration</em> philosophy, Rails will set-up your application with reasonable defaults. If you need different settings, you can overwrite them easily.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Rails adds all <tt>.rb</tt> and <tt>.yml</tt> files from <tt>config/locales</tt> directory to your <strong>translations load path</strong>, automatically.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>See the default <tt>en.yml</tt> locale in this directory, containing a sample pair of translation strings:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>en<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
hello<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"Hello world"</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This means, that in the <tt>:en</tt> locale, the key <em>hello</em> will map to <em>Hello world</em> string. Every string inside Rails is internationalized in this way, see for instance Active Record validation messages in the <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activerecord/lib/active_record/locale/en.yml"><tt>activerecord/lib/active_record/locale/en.yml</tt></a> file or time and date formats in the <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activesupport/lib/active_support/locale/en.yml"><tt>activesupport/lib/active_support/locale/en.yml</tt></a> file. You can use YAML or standard Ruby Hashes to store translations in the default (Simple) backend.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The I18n library will use <strong>English</strong> as a <strong>default locale</strong>, ie. if you don’t set a different locale, <tt>:en</tt> will be used for looking up translations.</p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/note.png" alt="Note" />
</td>
<td class="content">The i18n library takes <strong>pragmatic approach</strong> to locale keys (after <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/rails-i18n/browse_thread/thread/14dede2c7dbe9470/80eec34395f64f3c?hl=en">some discussion</a>), including only the <em>locale</em> ("language") part, like <tt>:en</tt>, <tt>:pl</tt>, not the <em>region</em> part, like <tt>:en-US</tt> or <tt>:en-UK</tt>, which are traditionally used for separating "languages" and "regional setting" or "dialects". (For instance, in the <tt>:en-US</tt> locale you would have $ as a currency symbol, while in <tt>:en-UK</tt>, you would have €. Also, insults would be different in American and British English :) Reason for this pragmatic approach is that most of the time, you usually care about making your application available in different "languages", and working with locales is much simpler this way. However, nothing stops you from separating regional and other settings in the traditional way. In this case, you could eg. inherit from the default <tt>en</tt> locale and then provide UK specific settings in a <tt>:en-UK</tt> dictionary.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The <strong>translations load path</strong> (<tt>I18n.load_path</tt>) is just a Ruby Array of paths to your translation files that will be loaded automatically and available in your application. You can pick whatever directory and translation file naming scheme makes sense for you.</p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/note.png" alt="Note" />
</td>
<td class="content">The backend will lazy-load these translations when a translation is looked up for the first time. This makes it possible to just swap the backend with something else even after translations have already been announced.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The default <tt>environment.rb</tt> files has instruction how to add locales from another directory and how to set different default locale. Just uncomment and edit the specific lines.</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
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<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># The internationalization framework can be changed</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># to have another default locale (standard is :en) or more load paths.</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># All files from config/locales/*.rb,yml are added automatically.</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config.i18n.load_path << Dir[File.join(RAILS_ROOT, 'my', 'locales', '*.{rb,yml}')]</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config.i18n.default_locale = :de</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="_optional_custom_i18n_configuration_setup">2.2. Optional: custom I18n configuration setup</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>For the sake of completeness, let’s mention that if you do not want to use the <tt>environment.rb</tt> file for some reason, you can always wire up things manually, too.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>To tell the I18n library where it can find your custom translation files you can specify the load path anywhere in your application - just make sure it gets run before any translations are actually looked up. You might also want to change the default locale. The simplest thing possible is to put the following into an <strong>initializer</strong>:</p></div>
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<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># in config/initializer/locale.rb</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># tell the I18n library where to find your translations</span></span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>load_path <span style="color: #990000"><<</span> Dir<span style="color: #990000">[</span> File<span style="color: #990000">.</span>join<span style="color: #990000">(</span>RAILS_ROOT<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'lib'</span><span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'locale'</span><span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'*.{rb,yml}'</span><span style="color: #990000">)</span> <span style="color: #990000">]</span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># set default locale to something else then :en</span></span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>default_locale <span style="color: #990000">=</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>pt</tt></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="_setting_and_passing_the_locale">2.3. Setting and passing the locale</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If you want to translate your Rails application to a <strong>single language other than English</strong> (the default locale), you can set I18n.default_locale to your locale in <tt>environment.rb</tt> or an initializer as shown above, and it will persist through the requests.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>However, you would probably like to <strong>provide support for more locales</strong> in your application. In such case, you need to set and pass the locale between requests.</p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/warning.png" alt="Warning" />
</td>
<td class="content">You may be tempted to store choosed locale in a <em>session</em> or a <em>cookie</em>. <strong>Do not do so</strong>. The locale should be transparent and a part of the URL. This way you don’t break people’s basic assumptions about the web itself: if you send a URL of some page to a friend, she should see the same page, same content. A fancy word for this would be that you’re being <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer"><em>RESTful</em></a>. Read more about RESTful approach in <a href="http://www.infoq.com/articles/rest-introduction">Stefan Tilkov’s articles</a>. There may be some exceptions to this rule, which are discussed below.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The <em>setting part</em> is easy. You can set locale in a <tt>before_filter</tt> in the ApplicationController like this:</p></div>
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<pre><tt>before_filter <span style="color: #990000">:</span>set_locale
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> set_locale
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># if params[:locale] is nil then I18n.default_locale will be used</span></span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>locale <span style="color: #990000">=</span> params<span style="color: #990000">[:</span>locale<span style="color: #990000">]</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This requires you to pass the locale as a URL query parameter as in <tt>http://example.com/books?locale=pt</tt>. (This is eg. Google’s approach). So <tt>http://localhost:3000?locale=pt</tt> will load the Portugese localization, whereas <tt>http://localhost:3000?locale=de</tt> would load the German localization, and so on. You may skip the next section and head over to the <strong>Internationalize your application</strong> section, if you want to try things out by manually placing locale in the URL and reloading the page.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Of course, you probably don’t want to manually include locale in every URL all over your application, or want the URLs look differently, eg. the usual <tt>http://example.com/pt/books</tt> versus <tt>http://example.com/en/books</tt>. Let’s discuss the different options you have.</p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/important.png" alt="Important" />
</td>
<td class="content">Following examples rely on having locales loaded into your application available as an array of strings like <tt>["en", "es", "gr"]</tt>. This is not inclued in current version of Rails 2.2 — forthcoming Rails version 2.3 will contain easy accesor <tt>available_locales</tt>. (See <a href="http://github.com/svenfuchs/i18n/commit/411f8fe7">this commit</a> and background at <a href="http://rails-i18n.org/wiki/pages/i18n-available_locales">Rails I18n Wiki</a>.)</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>So, for having available locales easily available in Rails 2.2, we have to include this support manually in an initializer, like this:</p></div>
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<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config/initializers/available_locales.rb</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900">#</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Get loaded locales conveniently</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># See http://rails-i18n.org/wiki/pages/i18n-available_locales</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">module</span></span> I18n
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">class</span></span> <span style="color: #990000"><<</span> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">self</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> available_locales<span style="color: #990000">;</span> backend<span style="color: #990000">.</span>available_locales<span style="color: #990000">;</span> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">module</span></span> Backend
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">class</span></span> Simple
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> available_locales<span style="color: #990000">;</span> translations<span style="color: #990000">.</span>keys<span style="color: #990000">.</span>collect <span style="color: #FF0000">{</span> <span style="color: #990000">|</span>l<span style="color: #990000">|</span> l<span style="color: #990000">.</span>to_s <span style="color: #FF0000">}</span><span style="color: #990000">.</span>sort<span style="color: #990000">;</span> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># You need to "force-initialize" loaded locales</span></span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>backend<span style="color: #990000">.</span>send<span style="color: #990000">(:</span>init_translations<span style="color: #990000">)</span>
AVAILABLE_LOCALES <span style="color: #990000">=</span> I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>backend<span style="color: #990000">.</span>available_locales
RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER<span style="color: #990000">.</span>debug <span style="color: #FF0000">"* Loaded locales: #{AVAILABLE_LOCALES.inspect}"</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>You can then wrap the constant for easy access in ApplicationController:</p></div>
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<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
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<pre><tt><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">class</span></span> ApplicationController <span style="color: #990000"><</span> ActionController<span style="color: #990000">::</span>Base
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> available_locales<span style="color: #990000">;</span> AVAILABLE_LOCALES<span style="color: #990000">;</span> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="_setting_locale_from_the_domain_name">2.4. Setting locale from the domain name</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>One option you have is to set the locale from the domain name where your application runs. For example, we want <tt>www.example.com</tt> to load English (or default) locale, and <tt>www.example.es</tt> to load Spanish locale. Thus the <em>top-level domain name</em> is used for locale setting. This has several advantages:</p></div>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
Locale is an <em>obvious</em> part of the URL
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
People intuitively grasp in which language the content will be displayed
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
It is very trivial to implement in Rails
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Search engines seem to like that content in different languages lives at different, inter-linked domains
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>You can implement it like this in your ApplicationController:</p></div>
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<pre><tt>before_filter <span style="color: #990000">:</span>set_locale
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> set_locale
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>locale <span style="color: #990000">=</span> extract_locale_from_uri
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Get locale from top-level domain or return nil if such locale is not available</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># You have to put something like:</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># 127.0.0.1 application.com</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># 127.0.0.1 application.it</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># 127.0.0.1 application.pl</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># in your /etc/hosts file to try this out locally</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> extract_locale_from_tld
parsed_locale <span style="color: #990000">=</span> request<span style="color: #990000">.</span>host<span style="color: #990000">.</span>split<span style="color: #990000">(</span><span style="color: #FF0000">'.'</span><span style="color: #990000">).</span>last
<span style="color: #990000">(</span>available_locales<span style="color: #990000">.</span><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">include</span></span><span style="color: #990000">?</span> parsed_locale<span style="color: #990000">)</span> <span style="color: #990000">?</span> parsed_locale <span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">nil</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>We can also set the locale from the <em>subdomain</em> in very similar way:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
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http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># Get locale code from request subdomain (like http://it.application.local:3000)</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># You have to put something like:</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># 127.0.0.1 gr.application.local</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># in your /etc/hosts file to try this out locally</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> extract_locale_from_subdomain
parsed_locale <span style="color: #990000">=</span> request<span style="color: #990000">.</span>subdomains<span style="color: #990000">.</span>first
<span style="color: #990000">(</span>available_locales<span style="color: #990000">.</span><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">include</span></span><span style="color: #990000">?</span> parsed_locale<span style="color: #990000">)</span> <span style="color: #990000">?</span> parsed_locale <span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">nil</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If your application includes a locale switching menu, you would then have something like this in it:</p></div>
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<pre><tt>link_to<span style="color: #990000">(</span><span style="color: #FF0000">"Deutsch"</span><span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"#{APP_CONFIG[:deutsch_website_url]}#{request.env['REQUEST_URI']}"</span><span style="color: #990000">)</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>assuming you would set <tt>APP_CONFIG[:deutsch_website_url]</tt> to some value like <tt>http://www.application.de</tt>.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This solution has aforementioned advantages, however, you may not be able or may not want to provide different localizations ("language versions") on different domains. The most obvious solution would be to include locale code in the URL params (or request path).</p></div>
<h3 id="_setting_locale_from_the_url_params">2.5. Setting locale from the URL params</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Most usual way of setting (and passing) the locale would be to include it in URL params, as we did in the <tt>I18n.locale = params[:locale]</tt> <em>before_filter</em> in the first example. We would like to have URLs like <tt>www.example.com/books?locale=ja</tt> or <tt>www.example.com/ja/books</tt> in this case.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This approach has almost the same set of advantages as setting the locale from domain name: namely that it’s RESTful and in accord with rest of the World Wide Web. It does require a little bit more work to implement, though.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Getting the locale from <tt>params</tt> and setting it accordingly is not hard; including it in every URL and thus <strong>passing it through the requests</strong> is. To include an explicit option in every URL (eg. <tt>link_to( books_url(:locale => I18n.locale) )</tt>) would be tedious and probably impossible, of course.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Rails contains infrastructure for "centralizing dynamic decisions about the URLs" in its <a href="http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/Base.html#M000515"><tt><strong>ApplicationController#default_url_options</strong></tt></a>, which is useful precisely in this scenario: it enables us to set "defaults" for <a href="http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/Base.html#M000503"><tt>url_for</tt></a> and helper methods dependent on it (by implementing/overriding this method).</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>We can include something like this in our ApplicationController then:</p></div>
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<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
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<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># app/controllers/application_controller.rb</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> default_url_options<span style="color: #990000">(</span>options<span style="color: #990000">=</span><span style="color: #FF0000">{}</span><span style="color: #990000">)</span>
logger<span style="color: #990000">.</span>debug <span style="color: #FF0000">"default_url_options is passed options: #{options.inspect}\n"</span>
<span style="color: #FF0000">{</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>locale <span style="color: #990000">=></span> I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>locale <span style="color: #FF0000">}</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Every helper method dependent on <tt>url_for</tt> (eg. helpers for named routes like <tt>root_path</tt> or <tt>root_url</tt>, resource routes like <tt>books_path</tt> or <tt>books_url</tt>, etc.) will now <strong>automatically include the locale in the query string</strong>, like this: <tt>http://localhost:3001/?locale=ja</tt>.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>You may be satisfied with this. It does impact the readability of URLs, though, when the locale "hangs" at the end of every URL in your application. Moreover, from the architectural standpoint, locale is usually hierarchically above the other parts of application domain: and URLs should reflect this.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>You probably want URLs look like this: <tt>www.example.com/en/books</tt> (which loads English locale) and <tt>www.example.com/nl/books</tt> (which loads Netherlands locale). This is achievable with the "over-riding <tt>default_url_options</tt>" strategy from above: you just have to set up your routes with <a href="http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/Resources.html#M000354"><tt>path_prefix</tt></a> option in this way:</p></div>
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<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config/routes.rb</span></span>
map<span style="color: #990000">.</span>resources <span style="color: #990000">:</span>books<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>path_prefix <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'/:locale'</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Now, when you call <tt>books_path</tt> method you should get <tt>"/en/books"</tt> (for the default locale). An URL like <tt>http://localhost:3001/nl/books</tt> should load the Netherlands locale, then, and following calls to <tt>books_path</tt> should return <tt>"/nl/books"</tt> (because the locale changed).</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Of course, you need to take special care of root URL (usually "homepage" or "dashboard") of your application. An URL like <tt>http://localhost:3001/nl</tt> will not work automatically, because the <tt>map.root :controller => "dashboard"</tt> declaration in your <tt>routes.rb</tt> doesn’t take locale into account. (And rightly so. There’s only one "root" URL.)</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>You would probably need to map URLs like these:</p></div>
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<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
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http://www.lorenzobettini.it
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<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config/routes.rb</span></span>
map<span style="color: #990000">.</span>dashboard <span style="color: #FF0000">'/:locale'</span><span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>controller <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"dashboard"</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Do take special care about the <strong>order of your routes</strong>, so this route declaration does not "eat" other ones. (You may want to add it directly before the <tt>map.root</tt> declaration.)</p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/important.png" alt="Important" />
</td>
<td class="content">This solution has currently one rather big <strong>downside</strong>. Due to the <em>default_url_options</em> implementation, you have to pass the <tt>:id</tt> option explicitely, like this: <tt>link_to <em>Show</em>, book_url(:id => book)</tt> and not depend on Rails' magic in code like <tt>link_to <em>Show</em>, book</tt>. If this should be a problem, have a look on two plugins which simplify working with routes in this way: Sven Fuchs’s <a href="http://github.com/svenfuchs/routing-filter/tree/master"><em>routing_filter</em></a> and Raul Murciano’s <a href="http://github.com/raul/translate_routes/tree/master"><em>translate_routes</em></a>. See also the page <a href="http://rails-i18n.org/wiki/pages/how-to-encode-the-current-locale-in-the-url">How to encode the current locale in the URL</a> in the Rails i18n Wiki.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<h3 id="_setting_locale_from_the_client_supplied_information">2.6. Setting locale from the client supplied information</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>In specific cases, it would make sense to set locale from client supplied information, ie. not from URL. This information may come for example from users' preffered language (set in their browser), can be based on users' geographical location inferred from their IP, or users can provide it simply by choosing locale in your application interface and saving it to their profile. This approach is more suitable for web-based applications or services, not for websites — see the box about <em>sessions</em>, <em>cookies</em> and RESTful architecture above.</p></div>
<h4 id="_using_accept_language">2.6.1. Using Accept-Language</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>One source of client supplied information would be an <tt>Accept-Language</tt> HTTP header. People may <a href="http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-priorities">set this in their browser</a> or other clients (such as <em>curl</em>).</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>A trivial implementation of using <tt>Accept-Language</tt> header would be:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> set_locale
logger<span style="color: #990000">.</span>debug <span style="color: #FF0000">"* Accept-Language: #{request.env['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']}"</span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>locale <span style="color: #990000">=</span> extract_locale_from_accept_language_header
logger<span style="color: #990000">.</span>debug <span style="color: #FF0000">"* Locale set to '#{I18n.locale}'"</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
private
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> extract_locale_from_accept_language_header
request<span style="color: #990000">.</span>env<span style="color: #990000">[</span><span style="color: #FF0000">'HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'</span><span style="color: #990000">].</span>scan<span style="color: #990000">(</span><span style="color: #FF6600">/^[a-z]{2}/</span><span style="color: #990000">).</span>first
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Of course, in production environment you would need much robust code, and could use a plugin such as Iaian Hecker’s <a href="http://github.com/iain/http_accept_language">http_accept_language</a>.</p></div>
<h4 id="_using_geoip_or_similar_database">2.6.2. Using GeoIP (or similar) database</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Another way of choosing the locale from client’s information would be to use a database for mapping client IP to region, such as <a href="http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecountry">GeoIP Lite Country</a>. The mechanics of the code would be very similar to the code above — you would need to query database for user’s IP, and lookup your preffered locale for the country/region/city returned.</p></div>
<h4 id="_user_profile">2.6.3. User profile</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>You can also provide users of your application with means to set (and possibly over-ride) locale in your application interface, as well. Again, mechanics for this approach would be very similar to the code above — you’d probably let users choose a locale from a dropdown list and save it to their profile in database. Then you’d set the locale to this value.</p></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_internationalizing_your_application">3. Internationalizing your application</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>OK! Now you’ve initialized I18n support for your Ruby on Rails application and told it which locale should be used and how to preserve it between requests. With that in place, you’re now ready for the really interesting stuff.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Let’s <em>internationalize</em> our application, ie. abstract every locale-specific parts, and that <em>localize</em> it, ie. provide neccessary translations for these abstracts.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>You most probably have something like this in one of your applications:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config/routes.rb</span></span>
ActionController<span style="color: #990000">::</span>Routing<span style="color: #990000">::</span>Routes<span style="color: #990000">.</span>draw <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">do</span></span> <span style="color: #990000">|</span>map<span style="color: #990000">|</span>
map<span style="color: #990000">.</span>root <span style="color: #990000">:</span>controller <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'home'</span><span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>action <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'index'</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># app/controllers/home_controller.rb</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">class</span></span> HomeController <span style="color: #990000"><</span> ApplicationController
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> index
flash<span style="color: #990000">[:</span>notice<span style="color: #990000">]</span> <span style="color: #990000">=</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"Hello flash!"</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># app/views/home/index.html.erb</span></span>
<span style="color: #FF0000"><h1></span>Hello world!<span style="color: #FF0000"></h1></span>
<span style="color: #FF0000"><p><%= flash[:notice] %></p></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
<img src="images/i18n/demo_untranslated.png" alt="rails i18n demo untranslated" title="rails i18n demo untranslated" />
</span></p></div>
<h3 id="_adding_translations">3.1. Adding Translations</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Obviously there are <strong>two strings that are localized to English</strong>. In order to internationalize this code, <strong>replace these strings</strong> with calls to Rails' <tt>#t</tt> helper with a key that makes sense for the translation:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># app/controllers/home_controller.rb</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">class</span></span> HomeController <span style="color: #990000"><</span> ApplicationController
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> index
flash<span style="color: #990000">[:</span>notice<span style="color: #990000">]</span> <span style="color: #990000">=</span> t<span style="color: #990000">(:</span>hello_flash<span style="color: #990000">)</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># app/views/home/index.html.erb</span></span>
<span style="color: #FF0000"><h1><%=t :hello_world %></h1></span>
<span style="color: #FF0000"><p><%= flash[:notice] %></p></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>When you now render this view, it will show an error message which tells you that the translations for the keys <tt>:hello_world</tt> and <tt>:hello_flash</tt> are missing.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
<img src="images/i18n/demo_translation_missing.png" alt="rails i18n demo translation missing" title="rails i18n demo translation missing" />
</span></p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/note.png" alt="Note" />
</td>
<td class="content">Rails adds a <tt>t</tt> (<tt>translate</tt>) helper method to your views so that you do not need to spell out <tt>I18n.t</tt> all the time. Additionally this helper will catch missing translations and wrap the resulting error message into a <tt><span class="translation_missing"></tt>.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>So let’s add the missing translations into the dictionary files (i.e. do the "localization" part):</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config/locale/en.yml</span></span>
en<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
hello_world<span style="color: #990000">:</span> Hello World
hello_flash<span style="color: #990000">:</span> Hello Flash
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config/locale/pirate.yml</span></span>
pirate<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
hello_world<span style="color: #990000">:</span> Ahoy World
hello_flash<span style="color: #990000">:</span> Ahoy Flash</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>There you go. Because you haven’t changed the default_locale, I18n will use English. Your application now shows:</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
<img src="images/i18n/demo_translated_en.png" alt="rails i18n demo translated to english" title="rails i18n demo translated to english" />
</span></p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>And when you change the URL to pass the pirate locale (<tt>http://localhost:3000?locale=pirate</tt>), you’ll get:</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
<img src="images/i18n/demo_translated_pirate.png" alt="rails i18n demo translated to pirate" title="rails i18n demo translated to pirate" />
</span></p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/note.png" alt="Note" />
</td>
<td class="content">You need to restart the server when you add new locale files.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<h3 id="_adding_date_time_formats">3.2. Adding Date/Time formats</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>OK! Now let’s add a timestamp to the view, so we can demo the <strong>date/time localization</strong> feature as well. To localize the time format you pass the Time object to <tt>I18n.l</tt> or (preferably) use Rails' <tt>#l</tt> helper. You can pick a format by passing the <tt>:format</tt> option — by default the <tt>:default</tt> format is used.</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># app/views/home/index.html.erb</span></span>
<span style="color: #FF0000"><h1><%=t :hello_world %></h1></span>
<span style="color: #FF0000"><p><%= flash[:notice] %></span><span style="color: #990000"></</span>p
<span style="color: #FF0000"><p><%= l Time.now, :format =></span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>short <span style="color: #990000">%></span><span style="color: #FF0000"></p></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>And in our pirate translations file let’s add a time format (it’s already there in Rails' defaults for English):</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># config/locale/pirate.yml</span></span>
pirate<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
time<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
formats<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
short<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"arrrround %H'ish"</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>So that would give you:</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
<img src="images/i18n/demo_localized_pirate.png" alt="rails i18n demo localized time to pirate" title="rails i18n demo localized time to pirate" />
</span></p></div>
<div class="admonitionblock">
<table><tr>
<td class="icon">
<img src="./images/icons/tip.png" alt="Tip" />
</td>
<td class="content">Right now you might need to add some more date/time formats in order to make the I18n backend work as expected. Of course, there’s a great chance that somebody already did all the work by <strong>translating Rails’s defaults for your locale</strong>. See the <a href="http://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n/tree/master/rails/locale">rails-i18n repository at Github</a> for an archive of various locale files. When you put such file(s) in <tt>config/locale/</tt> directory, they will automatically ready for use.</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<h3 id="_organization_of_locale_files">3.3. Organization of locale files</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>When you are using the default SimpleStore, shipped with the i18n library, you store dictionaries in plain-text files on the disc. Putting translations for all parts of your application in one file per locale could be hard to manage. You can store these files in a hierarchy which makes sense to you.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>For example, your <tt>config/locale</tt> directory could look like this:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>|-defaults
|---es.rb
|---en.rb
|-models
|---book
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
|-views
|---defaults
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
|---books
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
|---users
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
|---navigation
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb</tt></pre>
</div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This way, you can separate model and model attribute names from text inside views, and all of this from the "defaults" (eg. date and time formats).</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Other stores for the i18n library could provide different means of such separation.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Do check the <a href="http://rails-i18n.org/wiki">Rails i18n Wiki</a> for list of tools available for managing translations.</p></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_overview_of_the_i18n_api_features">4. Overview of the I18n API features</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>You should have good understanding of using the i18n library now, knowing all neccessary aspects of internationalizing a basic Rails application. In the following chapters, we’ll cover it’s features in more depth.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Covered are features like these:</p></div>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
looking up translations
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
interpolating data into translations
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
pluralizing translations
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
localizing dates, numbers, currency etc.
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<h3 id="_looking_up_translations">4.1. Looking up translations</h3>
<h4 id="_basic_lookup_scopes_and_nested_keys">4.1.1. Basic lookup, scopes and nested keys</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Translations are looked up by keys which can be both Symbols or Strings, so these calls are equivalent:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>message
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #FF0000">'message'</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><tt>translate</tt> also takes a <tt>:scope</tt> option which can contain one or many additional keys that will be used to specify a “namespace” or scope for a translation key:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>invalid<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>scope <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #990000">[:</span>active_record<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>error_messages<span style="color: #990000">]</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This looks up the <tt>:invalid</tt> message in the Active Record error messages.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Additionally, both the key and scopes can be specified as dot separated keys as in:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
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http://www.lorenzobettini.it
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<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>translate <span style="color: #990000">:</span><span style="color: #FF0000">"active_record.error_messages.invalid"</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Thus the following calls are equivalent:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #FF0000">'active_record.error_messages.invalid'</span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #FF0000">'error_messages.invalid'</span><span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>scope <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>active_record
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>invalid<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>scope <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'active_record.error_messages'</span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>invalid<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>scope <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #990000">[:</span>active_record<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>error_messages<span style="color: #990000">]</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<h4 id="_defaults">4.1.2. Defaults</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>When a default option is given its value will be returned if the translation is missing:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>missing<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>default <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'Not here'</span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># => 'Not here'</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If the default value is a Symbol it will be used as a key and translated. One can provide multiple values as default. The first one that results in a value will be returned.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>E.g. the following first tries to translate the key <tt>:missing</tt> and then the key <tt>:also_missing.</tt> As both do not yield a result the string "Not here" will be returned:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>missing<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>default <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #990000">[:</span>also_missing<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'Not here'</span><span style="color: #990000">]</span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># => 'Not here'</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<h4 id="_bulk_and_namespace_lookup">4.1.3. Bulk and namespace lookup</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>To lookup multiple translations at once an array of keys can be passed:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">[:</span>odd<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>even<span style="color: #990000">],</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>scope <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'active_record.error_messages'</span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># => ["must be odd", "must be even"]</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Also, a key can translate to a (potentially nested) hash as grouped translations. E.g. one can receive all Active Record error messages as a Hash with:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #FF0000">'active_record.error_messages'</span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># => { :inclusion => "is not included in the list", :exclusion => ... }</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="_interpolation">4.2. Interpolation</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>In many cases you want to abstract your translations so that <strong>variables can be interpolated into the translation</strong>. For this reason the I18n API provides an interpolation feature.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>All options besides <tt>:default</tt> and <tt>:scope</tt> that are passed to <tt>#translate</tt> will be interpolated to the translation:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>backend<span style="color: #990000">.</span>store_translations <span style="color: #990000">:</span>en<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>thanks <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'Thanks {{name}}!'</span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>translate <span style="color: #990000">:</span>thanks<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>name <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'Jeremy'</span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># => 'Thanks Jeremy!'</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If a translation uses <tt>:default</tt> or <tt>:scope</tt> as a interpolation variable an I+18n::ReservedInterpolationKey+ exception is raised. If a translation expects an interpolation variable but it has not been passed to <tt>#translate</tt> an <tt>I18n::MissingInterpolationArgument</tt> exception is raised.</p></div>
<h3 id="_pluralization">4.3. Pluralization</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>In English there’s only a singular and a plural form for a given string, e.g. "1 message" and "2 messages". Other languages (<a href="http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/charts/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html#ar">Arabic</a>, <a href="http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/charts/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html#ja">Japanese</a>, <a href="http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/charts/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html#ru">Russian</a> and many more) have different grammars that have additional or less <a href="http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/charts/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html">plural forms</a>. Thus, the I18n API provides a flexible pluralization feature.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The <tt>:count</tt> interpolation variable has a special role in that it both is interpolated to the translation and used to pick a pluralization from the translations according to the pluralization rules defined by CLDR:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>backend<span style="color: #990000">.</span>store_translations <span style="color: #990000">:</span>en<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>inbox <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">{</span>
<span style="color: #990000">:</span>one <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'1 message'</span><span style="color: #990000">,</span>
<span style="color: #990000">:</span>other <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'{{count}} messages'</span>
<span style="color: #FF0000">}</span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>translate <span style="color: #990000">:</span>inbox<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>count <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #993399">2</span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># => '2 messages'</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The algorithm for pluralizations in <tt>:en</tt> is as simple as:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>entry<span style="color: #990000">[</span>count <span style="color: #990000">==</span> <span style="color: #993399">1</span> <span style="color: #990000">?</span> <span style="color: #993399">0</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #993399">1</span><span style="color: #990000">]</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>I.e. the translation denoted as <tt>:one</tt> is regarded as singular, the other is used as plural (including the count being zero).</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If the lookup for the key does not return an Hash suitable for pluralization an <tt>18n::InvalidPluralizationData</tt> exception is raised.</p></div>
<h3 id="_setting_and_passing_a_locale">4.4. Setting and passing a locale</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The locale can be either set pseudo-globally to <tt>I18n.locale</tt> (which uses <tt>Thread.current</tt> like, e.g., <tt>Time.zone</tt>) or can be passed as an option to <tt>#translate</tt> and <tt>#localize</tt>.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If no locale is passed <tt>I18n.locale</tt> is used:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>locale <span style="color: #990000">=</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>de
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>foo
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>l Time<span style="color: #990000">.</span>now</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Explicitely passing a locale:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>foo<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>locale <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>de
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>l Time<span style="color: #990000">.</span>now<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>locale <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>de</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><tt>I18n.locale</tt> defaults to <tt>I18n.default_locale</tt> which defaults to :<tt>en</tt>. The default locale can be set like this:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>default_locale <span style="color: #990000">=</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>de</tt></pre></div></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_how_to_store_your_custom_translations">5. How to store your custom translations</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>The shipped Simple backend allows you to store translations in both plain Ruby and YAML format. <a href="#2">[2]</a></p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>For example a Ruby Hash providing translations can look like this:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="color: #FF0000">{</span>
<span style="color: #990000">:</span>pt <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">{</span>
<span style="color: #990000">:</span>foo <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">{</span>
<span style="color: #990000">:</span>bar <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"baz"</span>
<span style="color: #FF0000">}</span>
<span style="color: #FF0000">}</span>
<span style="color: #FF0000">}</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The equivalent YAML file would look like this:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>pt<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
foo<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
bar<span style="color: #990000">:</span> baz</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>As you see in both cases the toplevel key is the locale. <tt>:foo</tt> is a namespace key and <tt>:bar</tt> is the key for the translation "baz".</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Here is a "real" example from the ActiveSupport <tt>en.yml</tt> translations YAML file:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>en<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
date<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
formats<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
default<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"%Y-%m-%d"</span>
short<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"%b %d"</span>
long<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"%B %d, %Y"</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>So, all of the following equivalent lookups will return the <tt>:short</tt> date format <tt>"%B %d"</tt>:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #FF0000">'date.formats.short'</span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #FF0000">'formats.short'</span><span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>scope <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>date
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>short<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>scope <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #FF0000">'date.formats'</span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>short<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>scope <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="color: #990000">[:</span>date<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>formats<span style="color: #990000">]</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Generally we recommend using YAML as a format for storing translations. There are cases though where you want to store Ruby lambdas as part of your locale data, e.g. for special date.</p></div>
<h3 id="_translations_for_active_record_models">5.1. Translations for Active Record models</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>You can use the methods <tt>Model.human_name</tt> and <tt>Model.human_attribute_name(attribute)</tt> to transparently lookup translations for your model and attribute names.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>For example when you add the following translations:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>en<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
models<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
user<span style="color: #990000">:</span> Dude
attributes<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
user<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
login<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"Handle"</span>
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># will translate User attribute "login" as "Handle"</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Then <tt>User.human_name</tt> will return "Dude" and <tt>User.human_attribute_name(:login)</tt> will return "Handle".</p></div>
<h4 id="_error_message_scopes">5.1.1. Error message scopes</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Active Record validation error messages can also be translated easily. Active Record gives you a couple of namespaces where you can place your message translations in order to provide different messages and translation for certain models, attributes and/or validations. It also transparently takes single table inheritance into account.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This gives you quite powerful means to flexibly adjust your messages to your application’s needs.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Consider a User model with a <tt>validates_presence_of</tt> validation for the name attribute like this:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">class</span></span> User <span style="color: #990000"><</span> ActiveRecord<span style="color: #990000">::</span>Base
validates_presence_of <span style="color: #990000">:</span>name
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The key for the error message in this case is <tt>:blank</tt>. Active Record will lookup this key in the namespaces:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>messages<span style="color: #990000">.</span>models<span style="color: #990000">.[</span>model_name<span style="color: #990000">].</span>attributes<span style="color: #990000">.[</span>attribute_name<span style="color: #990000">]</span>
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>messages<span style="color: #990000">.</span>models<span style="color: #990000">.[</span>model_name<span style="color: #990000">]</span>
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>messages</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Thus, in our example it will try the following keys in this order and return the first result:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>messages<span style="color: #990000">.</span>models<span style="color: #990000">.</span>user<span style="color: #990000">.</span>attributes<span style="color: #990000">.</span>name<span style="color: #990000">.</span>blank
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>messages<span style="color: #990000">.</span>models<span style="color: #990000">.</span>user<span style="color: #990000">.</span>blank
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>messages<span style="color: #990000">.</span>blank</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>When your models are additionally using inheritance then the messages are looked up for the inherited model class names are looked up.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>For example, you might have an Admin model inheriting from User:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">class</span></span> Admin <span style="color: #990000"><</span> User
validates_presence_of <span style="color: #990000">:</span>name
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Then Active Record will look for messages in this order:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>models<span style="color: #990000">.</span>admin<span style="color: #990000">.</span>attributes<span style="color: #990000">.</span>title<span style="color: #990000">.</span>blank
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>models<span style="color: #990000">.</span>admin<span style="color: #990000">.</span>blank
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>models<span style="color: #990000">.</span>user<span style="color: #990000">.</span>attributes<span style="color: #990000">.</span>title<span style="color: #990000">.</span>blank
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>models<span style="color: #990000">.</span>user<span style="color: #990000">.</span>blank
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">.</span>errors<span style="color: #990000">.</span>messages<span style="color: #990000">.</span>blank</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This way you can provide special translations for various error messages at different points in your models inheritance chain and in the attributes, models or default scopes.</p></div>
<h4 id="_error_message_interpolation">5.1.2. Error message interpolation</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The translated model name, translated attribute name, and value are always available for interpolation.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p></p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><tt>count</tt>, where available, can be used for pluralization if present:</p></div>
<div class="tableblock">
<table rules="all"
width="100%"
frame="border"
cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
<col width="25%" />
<col width="25%" />
<col width="25%" />
<col width="25%" />
<tbody valign="top">
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validation</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">with option</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">message</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">interpolation</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_confirmation_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:confirmation</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_acceptance_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:accepted</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_presence_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:blank</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_length_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:within, :in</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:too_short</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_length_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:within, :in</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:too_long</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_length_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:is</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:wrong_length</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_length_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:minimum</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:too_short</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_length_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:maximum</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:too_long</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_uniqueness_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:taken</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_format_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:invalid</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_inclusion_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:inclusion</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_exclusion_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:exclusion</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_associated</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:invalid</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_numericality_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:not_a_number</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_numericality_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:greater_than</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:greater_than</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_numericality_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:greater_than_or_equal_to</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:greater_than_or_equal_to</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_numericality_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:equal_to</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:equal_to</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_numericality_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:less_than</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:less_than</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_numericality_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:less_than_or_equal_to</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:less_than_or_equal_to</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">count</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_numericality_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:odd</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:odd</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"><p class="table">validates_numericality_of</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:even</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">:even</p></td>
<td align="left"><p class="table">-</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<h4 id="_translations_for_the_active_record_error_messages_for_helper">5.1.3. Translations for the Active Record error_messages_for helper</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If you are using the Active Record <tt>error_messages_for</tt> helper you will want to add translations for it.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Rails ships with the following translations:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>en<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
activerecord<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
errors<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
template<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
header<span style="color: #990000">:</span>
one<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"1 error prohibited this {{model}} from being saved"</span>
other<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"{{count}} errors prohibited this {{model}} from being saved"</span>
body<span style="color: #990000">:</span> <span style="color: #FF0000">"There were problems with the following fields:"</span></tt></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="_overview_of_other_built_in_methods_that_provide_i18n_support">5.2. Overview of other built-in methods that provide I18n support</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Rails uses fixed strings and other localizations, such as format strings and other format information in a couple of helpers. Here’s a brief overview.</p></div>
<h4 id="_actionview_helper_methods">5.2.1. ActionView helper methods</h4>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
<tt>distance_of_time_in_words</tt> translates and pluralizes its result and interpolates the number of seconds, minutes, hours and so on. See <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/actionpack/lib/action_view/locale/en.yml#L51">datetime.distance_in_words</a> translations.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<tt>datetime_select</tt> and <tt>select_month</tt> use translated month names for populating the resulting select tag. See <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activesupport/lib/active_support/locale/en.yml#L15">date.month_names</a> for translations. <tt>datetime_select</tt> also looks up the order option from <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activesupport/lib/active_support/locale/en.yml#L18">date.order</a> (unless you pass the option explicitely). All date select helpers translate the prompt using the translations in the <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/actionpack/lib/action_view/locale/en.yml#L83">datetime.prompts</a> scope if applicable.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
The <tt>number_to_currency</tt>, <tt>number_with_precision</tt>, <tt>number_to_percentage</tt>, <tt>number_with_delimiter</tt> and <tt>humber_to_human_size</tt> helpers use the number format settings located in the <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/actionpack/lib/action_view/locale/en.yml#L2">number</a> scope.
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<h4 id="_active_record_methods">5.2.2. Active Record methods</h4>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
<tt>human_name</tt> and <tt>human_attribute_name</tt> use translations for model names and attribute names if available in the <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activerecord/lib/active_record/locale/en.yml#L43">activerecord.models</a> scope. They also support translations for inherited class names (e.g. for use with STI) as explained above in "Error message scopes".
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<tt>ActiveRecord::Errors#generate_message</tt> (which is used by Active Record validations but may also be used manually) uses <tt>human_name</tt> and <tt>human_attribute_name</tt> (see above). It also translates the error message and supports translations for inherited class names as explained above in "Error message scopes".
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>*<tt> ActiveRecord::Errors#full_messages</tt> prepends the attribute name to the error message using a separator that will be looked up from <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/actionpack/lib/action_view/locale/en.yml#L91">activerecord.errors.format.separator</a> (and defaults to <tt>' '</tt>).</p></div>
<h4 id="_activesupport_methods">5.2.3. ActiveSupport methods</h4>
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
<tt>Array#to_sentence</tt> uses format settings as given in the <a href="http://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activesupport/lib/active_support/locale/en.yml#L30">support.array</a> scope.
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_customize_your_i18n_setup">6. Customize your I18n setup</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<h3 id="_using_different_backends">6.1. Using different backends</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>For several reasons the shipped Simple backend only does the "simplest thing that ever could work" <em>for Ruby on Rails</em> <a href="#3">[3]</a> ... which means that it is only guaranteed to work for English and, as a side effect, languages that are very similar to English. Also, the simple backend is only capable of reading translations but can not dynamically store them to any format.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>That does not mean you’re stuck with these limitations though. The Ruby I18n gem makes it very easy to exchange the Simple backend implementation with something else that fits better for your needs. E.g. you could exchange it with Globalize’s Static backend:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>backend <span style="color: #990000">=</span> Globalize<span style="color: #990000">::</span>Backend<span style="color: #990000">::</span>Static<span style="color: #990000">.</span>new</tt></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="_using_different_exception_handlers">6.2. Using different exception handlers</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The I18n API defines the following exceptions that will be raised by backends when the corresponding unexpected conditions occur:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>MissingTranslationData <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># no translation was found for the requested key</span></span>
InvalidLocale <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># the locale set to I18n.locale is invalid (e.g. nil)</span></span>
InvalidPluralizationData <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># a count option was passed but the translation data is not suitable for pluralization</span></span>
MissingInterpolationArgument <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># the translation expects an interpolation argument that has not been passed</span></span>
ReservedInterpolationKey <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># the translation contains a reserved interpolation variable name (i.e. one of: scope, default)</span></span>
UnknownFileType <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># the backend does not know how to handle a file type that was added to I18n.load_path</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The I18n API will catch all of these exceptions when they were thrown in the backend and pass them to the default_exception_handler method. This method will re-raise all exceptions except for <tt>MissingTranslationData</tt> exceptions. When a <tt>MissingTranslationData</tt> exception has been caught it will return the exception’s error message string containing the missing key/scope.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The reason for this is that during development you’d usually want your views to still render even though a translation is missing.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>In other contexts you might want to change this behaviour though. E.g. the default exception handling does not allow to catch missing translations during automated tests easily. For this purpose a different exception handler can be specified. The specified exception handler must be a method on the I18n module:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">module</span></span> I18n
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">def</span></span> just_raise_that_exception<span style="color: #990000">(*</span>args<span style="color: #990000">)</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">raise</span></span> args<span style="color: #990000">.</span>first
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">end</span></span>
I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>exception_handler <span style="color: #990000">=</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span>just_raise_that_exception</tt></pre></div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>This would re-raise all caught exceptions including <tt>MissingTranslationData</tt>.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Another example where the default behaviour is less desirable is the Rails TranslationHelper which provides the method <tt>#t</tt> (as well as <tt>#translate</tt>). When a <tt>MissingTranslationData</tt> exception occurs in this context the helper wraps the message into a span with the CSS class <tt>translation_missing</tt>.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>To do so the helper forces <tt>I18n#translate</tt> to raise exceptions no matter what exception handler is defined by setting the <tt>:raise</tt> option:</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content"><!-- Generator: GNU source-highlight 2.9
by Lorenzo Bettini
http://www.lorenzobettini.it
http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite -->
<pre><tt>I18n<span style="color: #990000">.</span>t <span style="color: #990000">:</span>foo<span style="color: #990000">,</span> <span style="color: #990000">:</span><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">raise</span></span> <span style="color: #990000">=></span> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0000FF">true</span></span> <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #9A1900"># always re-raises exceptions from the backend</span></span></tt></pre></div></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_conclusion">7. Conclusion</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>At this point you hopefully have a good overview about how I18n support in Ruby on Rails works and are ready to start translating your project.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If you find anything missing or wrong in this guide please file a ticket on <a href="http://i18n.lighthouseapp.com/projects/14948-rails-i18n/overview">our issue tracker</a>. If you want to discuss certain portions or have questions please sign up to our <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/rails-i18n">mailinglist</a>.</p></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_contributing_to_rails_i18n">8. Contributing to Rails I18n</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>I18n support in Ruby on Rails was introduced in the release 2.2 and is still evolving. The project follows the good Ruby on Rails development tradition of evolving solutions in plugins and real applications first and then cherry-picking the best bread of most widely useful features second for inclusion to the core.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Thus we encourage everybody to experiment with new ideas and features in plugins or other libraries and make them available to the community. (Don’t forget to announce your work on our <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/rails-i18n">mailinglist</a>!)</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If you find your own locale (language) missing from our <a href="http://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n/tree/master/rails/locale">example translations data</a> repository for Ruby on Rails, please <a href="http://github.com/guides/fork-a-project-and-submit-your-modifications"><em>fork</em></a> the repository, add your data and send a <a href="http://github.com/guides/pull-requests">pull request</a>.</p></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_resources">9. Resources</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
<a href="http://rails-i18n.org">rails-i18n.org</a> - Homepage of the rails-i18n project. You can find lots of useful resources on the <a href="http://rails-i18n.org/wiki">wiki</a>.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="http://groups.google.com/group/rails-i18n">rails-i18n Google group</a> - The project’s mailing list.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="http://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n/tree/master">Github: rails-i18n</a> - Code repository for the rails-i18n project. Most importantly you can find lots of <a href="http://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n/tree/master/rails/locale">example translations</a> for Rails that should work for your application in most cases.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="http://i18n.lighthouseapp.com/projects/14948-rails-i18n/overview">Lighthouse: rails-i18n</a> - Issue tracker for the rails-i18n project.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="http://github.com/svenfuchs/i18n/tree/master">Github: i18n</a> - Code repository for the i18n gem.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="http://i18n.lighthouseapp.com/projects/14947-ruby-i18n/overview">Lighthouse: i18n</a> - Issue tracker for the i18n gem.
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_authors">10. Authors</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="ulist"><ul>
<li>
<p>
<a href="http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9963-sven-fuchs">Sven Fuchs</a> (initial author)
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<a href="http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/7476-karel-mina-k">Karel Minařík</a>
</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If you found this guide useful please consider recommending its authors on <a href="http://www.workingwithrails.com">workingwithrails</a>.</p></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_footnotes">11. Footnotes</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p><a id="1"></a>[1] Or, to quote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization">Wikipedia</a>: <em>"Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Localization is the process of adapting software for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components and translating text."</em></p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><a id="2"></a>[2] Other backends might allow or require to use other formats, e.g. a GetText backend might allow to read GetText files.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p><a id="3"></a>[3] One of these reasons is that we don’t want to any unnecessary load for applications that do not need any I18n capabilities, so we need to keep the I18n library as simple as possible for English. Another reason is that it is virtually impossible to implement a one-fits-all solution for all problems related to I18n for all existing languages. So a solution that allows us to exchange the entire implementation easily is appropriate anyway. This also makes it much easier to experiment with custom features and extensions.</p></div>
</div>
<h2 id="_changelog">12. Changelog</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p><a href="http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/16213/tickets/23">Lighthouse ticket</a></p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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