Using the flufl.i18n library#

There are two ways that your application can set up translations to use flufl.i18n. The simple initialization will work for most applications, where there is only one language context for the entire run of the application, such as for a command line tool. The more complex initialization works well for applications like servers that may want to use multiple language contexts during their execution.

Single language contexts#

If your applicationonly needs one language context for its entire execution (such as a command line tool), you can use the simple API to set things up.

>>> from flufl.i18n import initialize

The library by default uses the $LANG and $LOCPATH environment variables to set things up.

As environment variables, $LANG sets the language code and $LOCPATH sets the directory containing containing the translation catalogs with the language codes as subdirectories. Python’s gettext module provides more detail about the underlying organization and technology.

Note

In these examples, we’re using a faux language with a code of xx. For demonstration purposes, the xx language is just the rot13 of the original source string. The faux messages module referred to in these examples contains these language code directories.

>>> import os
>>> # Import the Python package containing all the translations.
>>> import messages

>>> os.environ['LANG'] = 'xx'
>>> os.environ['LOCPATH'] = os.path.dirname(messages.__file__)

Now you just need to call the initialize() function, passing in the application’s name, and you’ll get an object back that you can bind to the local _() function for run-time translations. Note that using _() isn’t required, but it’s a widely-used convention, derived from the GNU gettext model.

>>> _ = initialize('flufl')
>>> print(_('A test message'))
N grfg zrffntr

It’s probably best to just share this function through imports, but it does no harm to call initialize() again.

>>> _ = initialize('flufl')
>>> print(_('A test message'))
N grfg zrffntr

Multiple language contexts#

Some applications, such as servers, are more complex; they need multiple language contexts during their execution. To support this, there is a global registry of catalog searching strategies. When a particular language code is specified, a strategy is used to find the catalog that provides that language’s translations.

flufl.i18n comes with a couple of fairly simple strategies, and you can implement your own. A convenient built-in strategy looks up catalogs from within a directory using GNU gettext conventions, where the directory is an importable Python package (such as our messages example).

>>> from flufl.i18n import PackageStrategy
>>> strategy = PackageStrategy('flufl', messages)

The first argument is the application name, which must be unique among all registered strategies. The second argument is the package under which the translations can be found.

Once you have the desired strategy, register this with the global registry. The registration process returns an application object which can be used to look up language codes.

>>> from flufl.i18n import registry
>>> application = registry.register(strategy)

The application object keeps track of the current translation context, essentially a stack of languages. This object also exports a method which you can bind to the _() function, usually in your module globals. This underscore function always returns translations in the language at the top of the stack. I.e., at run time, _() will always translate its string argument to the current context’s language.

>>> _ = application._

By default the application just returns the original source string; i.e. it is a null translator.

>>> print(_('A test message'))
A test message

And it has no language code.

>>> print(_.code)
None

You can temporarily push a new language context to the top of the stack, so that the same underscore function will now return translations in the new language context.

>>> _.push('xx')
>>> print(_.code)
xx
>>> print(_('A test message'))
N grfg zrffntr

Pop the current language to return to the default. Once you’re at the bottom of the stack, more pops will just give you the default translation. Normally, that’s the null translation, but as you’ll see below, you can change that too.

>>> _.pop()
>>> print(_.code)
None
>>> print(_('A test message'))
A test message
>>> _.pop()
>>> print(_.code)
None
>>> print(_('A test message'))
A test message

Context manager#

To make all of this more convenient, the underscore method has a context manager called using() which temporarily sets a new language inside a with statement.

>>> print(_('A test message'))
A test message

>>> with _.using('xx'):
...     print(_('A test message'))
N grfg zrffntr

>>> print(_('A test message'))
A test message

These with statements are nestable.

Note

The yy language is another faux translation, where the source string is reversed.

Here we can see that the outer context translates the source string differently than the inner context.

>>> with _.using('xx'):
...     print(_('A test message'))
...     with _.using('yy'):
...         print(_('A test message'))
...     print(_('A test message'))
N grfg zrffntr
egassem tset A
N grfg zrffntr

>>> print(_('A test message'))
A test message

The default language context#

As mentioned above, the default language context, i.e. the Yertle at the bottom of the stack is, by default, the null translation. The null translation just returns the source string unchanged. You can set the default language context at the bottom of the stack.

>>> _.default = 'xx'
>>> print(_('A test message'))
N grfg zrffntr

>>> _.pop()
>>> print(_.code)
xx

>>> print(_('A test message'))
N grfg zrffntr

>>> with _.using('yy'):
...     print(_('A test message'))
egassem tset A

>>> print(_('A test message'))
N grfg zrffntr

You can reset the default back to the null context by del-ing the default attribute.

>>> del _.default
>>> print(_.code)
None

Substitutions and placeholders#

Once you have an underscore function, using the library is very simple. You just call _() passing in the source string you want to translate. What if your source strings can’t be static literals, because you need them to contain substitutions calculated at run time? You need to define some placeholders in your source string, so that the run time substitutions will be inserted there. Further complicating matters, some languages need to change the order of placeholders in their translations. In general, it’s good practice for your source strings to be complete sentences, because that is easier for all your human translaters to … translate!

To support this, you use PEP 292 style $-substitution strings inside the underscore function. These strings contain $variables and when translated, run time data is inserted into these variables. The substitutions are taken from the locals and globals of the function where the translation is performed, so you don’t need to repeat yourself.

Here’s a simple example where the variable names are $ordinal and $name. See if you can figure out where the values are taken from at run time.

>>> ordinal = 'first'
>>> def print_it(name):
...     print(_('The $ordinal test message $name'))

In this example, when print_it() is called, the $ordinal placeholder is taken from globals, while the $name placeholder is taken from the function’s locals (i.e. its parameters and other local variables).

With no language context in place, the source string is printed unchanged, except that the substitutions are made.

>>> print_it('Anne')
The first test message Anne

When a substitution is missing, rather than raise an exception, the $-variable name itself is used.

>>> del ordinal
>>> print_it('Bart')
The $ordinal test message Bart

When there is a language context in effect, the substitutions happen after translation.

>>> ordinal = 'second'
>>> with _.using('xx'):
...     print_it('Cris')
second si n grfg zrffntr Cris

Our hypothetical yy language changes the order of the substitution variables, but of course there is no problem with that.

>>> ordinal = 'third'
>>> with _.using('yy'):
...     print_it('Dave')
Dave egassem tset third eht

Locals always take precedence over globals.

>>> def print_it(name, ordinal):
...     print(_('The $ordinal test message $name'))

>>> with _.using('yy'):
...     print_it('Elle', 'fourth')
Elle egassem tset fourth eht

Deferred translations#

Remember that the _() function has both a run time and a static purpose. Most source string extraction tools look for functions named _() taking a single string argument, and the pull those arguments out as the source strings. Sometimes however, you want to mark source strings for translation, but you need to defer the translation of some of them until later. The way to do this is with the defer_translation() function.

>>> with _.defer_translation():
...     print(_('This gets marked but not translated'))
This gets marked but not translated

Because the string is wrapped in the _() function, it will get extracted and added to the catalog by off-line tools, but it will not get translated until later. This is true even if there is a translation context in effect.

>>> with _.using('xx'):
...     with _.defer_translation():
...         print(_('A test message'))
...     print(_('A test message'))
A test message
N grfg zrffntr