Tater

Tater is an internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) library designed for simplicity. It doesn't do everything that other libraries do, but that's by design.

Under the hood, Tater uses a Hash to store the messages, the dig method for lookups, strftime for date and time localizations, and format for interpolation. That's probably 90% of what Tater does.

Installation

Tater requires Ruby 2.7 or higher. To install Tater, add this line to your application's Gemfile (or gems.rb):

gem 'tater'

And then execute:

bundle

Or install it yourself by running:

gem install tater

Usage

require 'tater'

messages = {
  'en' => {
    'some' => {
      'key' => 'This here string!'
    },
    'interpolated' => 'Hello %{you}!'
  }
}

i18n = Tater.new(locale: 'en')
i18n.load(messages: messages)

# OR
i18n = Tater.new(locale: 'en', messages: messages)

# Basic lookup:
i18n.translate('some.key') # => 'This here string!'

# Interpolation:
i18n.translate('interpolated', you: 'world') # => 'Hello world!'

Array localization

Given an array, Tater will do it's best to join the elements of the array into a sentence based on how many elements there are.

en:
  array:
    last_word_connector: ", and "
    two_words_connector: " and "
    words_connector: ", "

i18n.localize(%w[tacos enchiladas burritos]) # => "tacos, enchiladas, and burritos"

Numeric localization

Numeric localization (Numeric, Integer, Float, and BigDecimal) require filling in a separator and delimiter. For example:

en:
  numeric:
    delimiter: ','
    separator: '.'

With that, you can do things like this:

i18n.localize(1000.2) # => "1,000.20"

The separator and delimiter can also be passed in per-call:

i18n.localize(1000.2, delimiter: '_', separator: '+') # => "1_000+20"

Date and time localization

Date and time localization (Date, Time, and DateTime) require filling in all of the needed names and abbreviations for days and months. Here's the example for French, which is used in the tests.

fr:
  time:
    am: 'am'
    pm: 'pm'

    formats:
      default: '%I%P'
      loud: '%I%p'

  date:
    formats:
      abbreviated_day: '%a'
      day: '%A'

      abbreviated_month: '%b'
      month: '%B'

    days:
      - dimanche
      - lundi
      - mardi
      - mercredi
      - jeudi
      - vendredi
      - samedi

    abbreviated_days:
      - dim
      - lun
      - mar
      - mer
      - jeu
      - ven
      - sam

    months:
      - janvier
      - février
      - mars
      - avril
      - mai
      - juin
      - juillet
      - août
      - septembre
      - octobre
      - novembre
      - décembre

    abbreviated_months:
      - jan.
      - fév.
      - mar.
      - avr.
      - mai
      - juin
      - juil.
      - août
      - sept.
      - oct.
      - nov.
      - déc.

The statically defined keys for dates are days, abbreviated_days, months, and abbreviated_months. Only am and pm are needed for times and only if you plan on using the %p or %P format strings.

With all of that, you can do something like:

i18n.localize(Date.new(1970, 1, 1), format: '%A') # => 'jeudi'

# Or, using a key defined in "formats":
i18n.localize(Date.new(1970, 1, 1), format: 'day') # => 'jeudi'

Cascading lookups

Lookups can be cascaded, i.e. pieces of the scope of the can be lopped off incrementally.

messages = {
  'en' => {
    'login' => {
      'title' => 'Login',
      'description' => 'Normal description.'

      'special' => {
        'title' => 'Special Login'
      }
    }
  }
}

i18n = Tater.new(locale: 'en', messages: messages)
i18n.translate('login.special.title') # => 'Special Login'
i18n.translate('login.special.description') # => 'Tater lookup failed'

i18n.translate('login.special.description', cascade: true) # => 'Normal description.'

With cascade, the final key stays the same, but pieces of the scope get lopped off. In this case, lookups will be tried in this order:

1. login.special.description
2. login.description

This can be useful when you want to override some messages but don't want to have to copy all of the other, non-overwritten messages.

Cascading can also be enabled by default when initializing an instance of Tater.

Tater.new(cascade: true)

Cascading is off by default.

Defaults

If you'd like to default to another value in case of a missed lookup, you can provide the :default option to #translate.

Tater.new.translate('nope', default: 'Yep!') # => 'Yep!'

Procs and messages in Ruby

Ruby files can be used to store messages in addition to YAML, so long as the Ruby file returns a Hash when evaluated.

{
  'en' => {
    ruby: proc do |key, options = {}|
      "Hey #{ key }!"
    end
  }
}

Multiple locales

If you would like to check multiple locales and pull the first matching one out, you can pass the :locales option to initialization or the translate method with an array of top-level locale keys.

messages = {
  'en' => {
    'title' => 'Login',
    'description' => 'English description.'
  },
  'fr' => {
    'title' => 'la connexion'
  }
}

i18n = Tater.new(messages: messages)
i18n.translate('title', locales: %w[fr en]) # => 'la connexion'
i18n.translate('description', locales: %w[fr en]) # => 'English description.'

# OR
i18n = Tater.new(messages: messages, locales: %w[fr en])
i18n.translate('title') # => 'la connexion'
i18n.translate('description') # => 'English description.'

Locales will be tried in order and whichever one matches first will be returned.

Limitations

• It is not plug-able, it does what it does and that's it.
• It doesn't handle pluralization yet, though it may in the future.

Why?

Because Ruby I18n is amazing and I wanted to try to create a minimum viable implementation of the bits of I18n that I use 90% of the time. Tater is a single file that handles the basics of lookup and interpolation.

Trivia

I was originally going to call this library "Translator" but with a numeronym like I18n: "t8r". I looked at it for a while but I read it as "tater" instead of "tee-eight-arr" so I figured I'd just name it Tater. Tater the translator.