A small library to provide the i18n translations on the JavaScript.
Installation
- Yarn:
yarn add i18n-js@latest
- NPM:
npm install i18n-js@latest
Usage
Setting up
First, you need to instantiate I18n
with the translations' object, the main
class of this library.
import { I18n } from "i18n-js";
import translations from "./translations.json";
const i18n = new I18n(translations);
The translations
object is a direct export of translations defined by
Ruby on Rails. To export the
translations, you can use i18n-js, a Ruby
gem that's completely disconnected from Rails and that can be used for the
solely purpose of exporting the translations, even if your project is written in
a different language. If all you care about is some basic translation mechanism,
then you can set the object like this:
const i18n = new I18n({
en: {
hello: "Hi!",
},
"pt-BR": {
hello: "Olá!",
},
});
Each root key is a different locale that may or may not have the script code.
This library also supports locales with region code, like zh-Hant-TW
.
Once everything is set up, you can then define the locale. en
is both the
current and default locale. To override either values, you have to use
I18n#defaultLocale
and I18n#locale
.
i18n.defaultLocale = "pt-BR";
i18n.locale = "pt-BR";
Base translations
This library comes bundled with all base translations made available by
rails-i18n.
Base translations allow formatting date, numbers, and sentence connectors, among
other things.
To load the base translations, use something like the following:
import { I18n } from "i18n-js";
import ptBR from "i18n-js/json/pt-BR.json";
import en from "i18n-js/json/en.json";
const i18n = new I18n({
...ptBR,
...en,
});
Updating translation store
Updating the translation store is trivial. All you have to do is calling
I18n#store
with the translations that need to be merged. Let's assume you've
exported all your app's translations using
i18n-js CLI, using a separate file for each
language, like this:
translations/en.json
translations/pt-BR.json
This is how you could update the store:
import { I18n } from "i18n-js";
import ptBR from "translations/pt-BR.json";
import en from "translations/en.json";
const i18n = new I18n();
i18n.store(en);
i18n.store(ptBR);
This method will allow you to lazy load translations and them updating the store
as needed.
import { I18n } from "i18n-js";
async function loadTranslations(i18n, locale) {
const response = await fetch(`/translations/${locale}.json`);
const translations = await response.json();
i18n.store(translations);
}
const i18n = new I18n();
loadTranslations(i18n, "es");
Events
A change event is triggered whenever I18n#store
or I18n#update
is called, or
when I18n#locale
/I18n#defaultLocale
is set. To subscribe to these changes,
use the method I18n#onChange(i18n: I18n)
.
const i18n = new I18n();
i18n.onChange(() => {
console.log("I18n has changed!");
});
Every change will increment the property I18n#version
, so you can use it as a
cache key. Also, when you subscribe to change events,
I18n#onChange(i18n: I18n)
will return another function that can be used to
remove the event handler.
useEffect(() => {
const unsubscribe = i18n.onChange(() => {
});
return unsubscribe;
}, []);
useEffect(() => {
console.log("I18n has been updated!");
}, [i18n.version]);
Translating messages
To translate messages, you have to use the I18n#translate
, or its I18n#t
alias.
i18n.locale = "en";
i18n.t("hello");
i18n.locale = "pt-BR";
i18n.t("hello");
You can also provide an array as scope. Both calls below are equivalent.
i18n.t(["greetings", "hello"]);
i18n.t("greetings.hello");
Your translations may have dynamic values that should be interpolated. Here's a
greeting message that takes a name:
const i18n = new I18n({
en: { greetings: "Hi, %{name}!" },
"pt-BR": { greetings: "Olá, %{name}!" },
});
i18n.t("greetings", { name: "John" });
You may want to override the default interpolate
function with your own, if for instance you want these dynamic values to be React elements:
const i18n = new I18n({
en: { greetings: "Hi, %{name}!" },
"pt-BR": { greetings: "Olá, %{name}!" },
});
i18n.interpolate = (i18n, message, options) => {
}
return (
<Text>
{i18n.t("greetings", { name: <BoldText>John</BoldText> })}
</Text>
)
Missing translations
A translation may be missing. In that case, you may set the default value that's
going to be returned.
i18n.t("missing.scope", { defaultValue: "This is a default message" });
Default messages can also have interpolation.
i18n.t("noun", { defaultValue: "I'm a {{noun}}", noun: "Mac" });
Alternatively, you can define a list of scopes that will be searched instead.
i18n.t("some.missing.scope", { defaults: [{ scope: "some.existing.scope" }] });
i18n.t("some.missing.scope", { defaults: [{ message: "Some message" }] });
Default values must be provided as an array of objects where the key is the type
of desired translation, a scope
or a message
. The returned translation will
be either the first scope recognized, or the first message defined.
The translation will fall back to the defaultValue
translation if no scope in
defaults
matches and if no message
default is found.
You can enable translation fallback with I18n#enableFallback
.
i18n.enableFallback = true;
By default missing translations will first be looked for in less specific
versions of the requested locale and if that fails by taking them from your
I18n#defaultLocale
.
i18n.t("some.missing.scope");
Custom fallback rules can also be specified for a specific language. There are
three different ways of doing it so. In any case, the locale handler must be
registered using i18n.locales.register()
.
i18n.locales.register("no", ["nb", "en"]);
i18n.locales.no.register("nb");
i18n.locales.no.register((locale) => ["nb"]);
By default a missing translation will be displayed as
[missing "name of scope" translation]
. You can override this behavior by
setting i18n.missingBehavior
to "guess"
.
i18n.missingBehavior = "guess";
The "guess" behavior will take the last section of the scope and apply some
replace rules; camel case becomes lower case and underscores are replaced with
space. In practice, it means that a scope like
questionnaire.whatIsYourFavorite_ChristmasPresent
becomes
what is your favorite Christmas present
.
There's also a strategy called error
, which will throw an exception every time
you fetch a missing translation. This is great for development. It'll even end
up on your error tracking!
i18n.missingBehavior = "error";
To detect missing translations, you can also set
i18n.missingTranslationPrefix
.
i18n.missingTranslationPrefix = "EE: ";
The same questionnaire.whatIsYourFavorite_ChristmasPresent
scope would
converted into EE: what is your favorite Christmas present
. This is helpful if
you want to add a check to your automated tests.
If you need to specify a missing behavior just for one call, you can provide a
custom missingBehavior
option.
i18n.t("missing.key", { missingBehavior: "error" });
You can completely override the missing translation strategy by setting it to a
function. The following example will return null
for every missing
translation.
i18n.missingTranslation = () => null;
Finally, you can also create your own missing translation behavior. The example
below registers a new behavior that returns an empty string in case a
translation is missing.
i18n.missingTranslation.register("empty", (i18n, scope, options) => "");
Pluralization
This library has support for pluralization and by default works with English,
and similar pluralized languages like Portuguese.
First, you have to define your translations with special keywords defined by the
pluralization handler. The default keywords are zero
, one
, and other
.
const i18n = new I18n({
en: {
inbox: {
zero: "You have no messages",
one: "You have one message",
other: "You have %{count} messages",
},
},
"pt-BR": {
inbox: {
zero: "Você não tem mensagens",
one: "Você tem uma mensagem",
other: "Você tem %{count} mensagens",
},
},
});
To retrieve the pluralized translation you must provide the count
option with
a numeric value.
i18n.t("inbox", { count: 0 });
i18n.t("inbox", { count: 1 });
i18n.t("inbox", { count: 2 });
You may need to define new rules for other languages like Russian. This can be
done by registering a handler with i18n.pluralization.register()
. The
following example defines a Russian pluralizer.
i18n.pluralization.register("ru", (_i18n, count) => {
const mod10 = count % 10;
const mod100 = count % 100;
let key;
const one = mod10 === 1 && mod100 !== 11;
const few = [2, 3, 4].includes(mod10) && ![12, 13, 14].includes(mod100);
const many =
mod10 === 0 ||
[5, 6, 7, 8, 9].includes(mod10) ||
[11, 12, 13, 14].includes(mod100);
if (one) {
key = "one";
} else if (few) {
key = "few";
} else if (many) {
key = "many";
} else {
key = "other";
}
return [key];
});
You can find all rules on
http://www.unicode.org/.
It's encourage to publish your pluralizers using the following name pattern:
i18n-<locale>-pluralizer
. If you publish a pluralizer, please add a pull
request so we can list it here.
Other options
If you're providing the same scope again and again, you can reduce the
boilerplate by setting the scope
option.
const options = { scope: "activerecord.attributes.user" };
i18n.t("name", options);
i18n.t("email", options);
i18n.t("username", options);
Number Formatting
Similar to Rails helpers, you can have localized number and currency formatting.
i18n.l("currency", 1990.99);
i18n.l("number", 1990.99);
i18n.l("percentage", 123.45);
To have more control over number formatting, you can use the
I18n#numberToHuman
, I18n#numberToPercentage
, I18n#numberToCurrency
,
I18n#numberToHumanSize
, I18n#numberToDelimited
and I18n#numberToRounded
functions.
I18n#numberToCurrency
Formats a number
into a currency string (e.g., $13.65). You can customize the
format in the using an options
object.
The currency unit and number formatting of the current locale will be used
unless otherwise specified in the provided options. No currency conversion is
performed. If the user is given a way to change their locale, they will also be
able to change the relative value of the currency displayed with this helper.
Options
precision
- Sets the level of precision (defaults to 2).roundMode
- Determine how rounding is performed (defaults to default
.)unit
- Sets the denomination of the currency (defaults to "$").separator
- Sets the separator between the units (defaults to ".").delimiter
- Sets the thousands delimiter (defaults to ",").format
- Sets the format for non-negative numbers (defaults to "%u%n").
Fields are %u
for the currency, and %n
for the number.negativeFormat
- Sets the format for negative numbers (defaults to
prepending a hyphen to the formatted number given by format
). Accepts the
same fields than format
, except %n
is here the absolute value of the
number.stripInsignificantZeros
- If true
removes insignificant zeros after the
decimal separator (defaults to false
).raise
- If true
, raises exception for non-numeric values like NaN and
Infinite values.
Examples
i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5);
i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.506);
i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.506, { precision: 3 });
i18n.numberToCurrency("123a456");
i18n.numberToCurrency("123a456", { raise: true });
i18n.numberToCurrency(-0.456789, { precision: 0 });
i18n.numberToCurrency(-1234567890.5, { negativeFormat: "(%u%n)" });
i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5, {
unit: "£",
separator: ",",
delimiter: "",
});
i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5, {
unit: "£",
separator: ",",
delimiter: "",
format: "%n %u",
});
i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5, { stripInsignificantZeros: true });
i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5, { precision: 0, roundMode: "up" });
I18n#numberToPercentage
Formats a number
as a percentage string (e.g., 65%). You can customize the
format in the options
hash.
Options
precision
- Sets the level of precision (defaults to 3).roundMode
- Determine how rounding is performed (defaults to default
.)separator
- Sets the separator between the units (defaults to ".").delimiter
- Sets the thousands delimiter (defaults to "").format
- Sets the format for non-negative numbers (defaults to "%n%"). The
number field is represented by %n
.negativeFormat
- Sets the format for negative numbers (defaults to
prepending a hyphen to the formatted number given by format
). Accepts the
same fields than format
, except %n
is here the absolute value of the
number.stripInsignificantZeros
- If true
removes insignificant zeros after the
decimal separator (defaults to false
).
Examples
i18n.numberToPercentage(100);
i18n.numberToPercentage("98");
i18n.numberToPercentage(100, { precision: 0 });
i18n.numberToPercentage(1000, { delimiter: ".", separator: "," });
i18n.numberToPercentage(302.24398923423, { precision: 5 });
i18n.numberToPercentage(1000, { precision: null });
i18n.numberToPercentage("98a");
i18n.numberToPercentage(100, { format: "%n %" });
i18n.numberToPercentage(302.24398923423, { precision: 5, roundMode: "down" });
I18n#numberToDelimited
Formats a number
with grouped thousands using delimiter
(e.g., 12,324). You
can customize the format in the options
object.
Options
delimiter
- Sets the thousands delimiter (defaults to ",").separator
- Sets the separator between the fractional and integer digits
(defaults to ".").delimiterPattern
- Sets a custom regular expression used for deriving the
placement of delimiter. Helpful when using currency formats like INR. The
regular expression must be global (i.e. it has the g
flag).
Examples
i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678);
i18n.numberToDelimited("123456");
i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678.05);
i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678, { delimiter: "." });
i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678, { delimiter: "," });
i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678.05, { separator: " " });
i18n.numberToDelimited("112a");
i18n.numberToDelimited(98765432.98, { delimiter: " ", separator: "," });
i18n.numberToDelimited("123456.78", {
delimiterPattern: /(\d+?)(?=(\d\d)+(\d)(?!\d))/g,
});
I18n#numberToRounded
Formats a number
with the specified level of precision
(e.g., 112.32 has a
precision of 2 if significant
is false
, and 5 if significant
is true
).
You can customize the format in the options
object.
Options
locale
- Sets the locale to be used for formatting (defaults to current
locale).precision
- Sets the precision of the number (defaults to 3). Keeps the
number's precision if null
.RoundMode
- Determine how rounding is performed (defaults to :default).significant
- If true
, precision will be the number of significant_digits.
If false
, the number of fractional digits (defaults to false
).separator
- Sets the separator between the fractional and integer digits
(defaults to ".").delimiter
- Sets the thousands delimiter (defaults to "").stripInsignificantZeros
- If true
removes insignificant zeros after the
decimal separator (defaults to false
).
Examples
i18n.numberToRounded(111.2345);
i18n.numberToRounded(111.2345, { precision: 2 });
i18n.numberToRounded(13, { precision: 5 });
i18n.numberToRounded(389.32314, { precision: 0 });
i18n.numberToRounded(111.2345, { significant: true });
i18n.numberToRounded(111.2345, { precision: 1, significant: true });
i18n.numberToRounded(13, { precision: 5, significant: true });
i18n.numberToRounded(13, { precision: null });
i18n.numberToRounded(389.32314, { precision: 0, roundMode: "up" });
i18n.numberToRounded(13, {
precision: 5,
significant: true,
stripInsignificantZeros: true,
});
i18n.numberToRounded(389.32314, { precision: 4, significant: true });
i18n.numberToRounded(1111.2345, {
precision: 2,
separator: ",",
delimiter: ".",
});
I18n#numberToHumanSize
Formats the bytes in number
into a more understandable representation (e.g.,
giving it 1500 yields 1.46 KB). This method is useful for reporting file sizes
to users. You can customize the format in the options
object.
See I18n#numberToHuman
if you want to pretty-print a generic number.
Options
precision
- Sets the precision of the number (defaults to 3).roundMode
- Determine how rounding is performed (defaults to default
)significant
- If true
, precision will be the number of significant_digits.
If false
, the number of fractional digits (defaults to true
)separator
- Sets the separator between the fractional and integer digits
(defaults to ".").delimiter
- Sets the thousands delimiter (defaults to "").stripInsignificantZeros
- If true
removes insignificant zeros after the
decimal separator (defaults to true
)
Examples
i18n.numberToHumanSize(123)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(12345)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890123)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890123456)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890123456789)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567, {precision: 2})
i18n.numberToHumanSize(483989, precision: 2)
i18n.numberToHumanSize(483989, {precision: 2, roundMode: "up"})
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567, {precision: 2, separator: ","})
i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890123, {precision: 5})
i18n.numberToHumanSize(524288000, {precision: 5})
I18n#numberToHuman
Pretty prints (formats and approximates) a number in a way it is more readable
by humans (e.g.: 1200000000 becomes "1.2 Billion"). This is useful for numbers
that can get very large (and too hard to read).
See I18n#numberToHumanSize
if you want to print a file size.
You can also define your own unit-quantifier names if you want to use other
decimal units (e.g.: 1500 becomes "1.5 kilometers", 0.150 becomes "150
milliliters", etc). You may define a wide range of unit quantifiers, even
fractional ones (centi, deci, mili, etc).
Options
precision
- Sets the precision of the number (defaults to 3).roundMode
- Determine how rounding is performed (defaults to default
).significant
- If true
, precision will be the number of significant_digits.
If false
, the number of fractional digits (defaults to true
)separator
- Sets the separator between the fractional and integer digits
(defaults to ".").delimiter
- Sets the thousands delimiter (defaults to "").stripInsignificantZeros
- If true
removes insignificant zeros after the
decimal separator (defaults to true
)units
- A Hash of unit quantifier names. Or a string containing an i18n
scope where to find this hash. It might have the following keys:
- integers:
unit
, ten
, hundred
, thousand
, million
, billion
,
trillion
, quadrillion
- fractionals:
deci
, centi
, mili
, micro
, nano
, pico
, femto
format
- Sets the format of the output string (defaults to "%n %u"). The
field types are:
- %u - The quantifier (ex.: 'thousand')
- %n - The number
Examples
i18n.numberToHuman(123);
i18n.numberToHuman(1234);
i18n.numberToHuman(12345);
i18n.numberToHuman(1234567);
i18n.numberToHuman(1234567890);
i18n.numberToHuman(1234567890123);
i18n.numberToHuman(1234567890123456);
i18n.numberToHuman(1234567890123456789);
i18n.numberToHuman(489939, { precision: 2 });
i18n.numberToHuman(489939, { precision: 4 });
i18n.numberToHuman(489939, { precision: 2, roundMode: "down" });
i18n.numberToHuman(1234567, { precision: 4, significant: false });
i18n.numberToHuman(1234567, {
precision: 1,
separator: ",",
significant: false,
});
i18n.numberToHuman(500000000, { precision: 5 });
i18n.numberToHuman(12345012345, { significant: false });
Non-significant zeros after the decimal separator are stripped out by default
(set stripInsignificantZeros
to false
to change that):
i18n.numberToHuman(12.00001);
i18n.numberToHuman(12.00001, { stripInsignificantZeros: false });
You can also use your own custom unit quantifiers:
i18n.numberToHuman(500000, units: { unit: "ml", thousand: "lt" })
If in your I18n locale you have:
---
en:
distance:
centi:
one: "centimeter"
other: "centimeters"
unit:
one: "meter"
other: "meters"
thousand:
one: "kilometer"
other: "kilometers"
billion: "gazillion-distance"
Then you could do:
i18n.numberToHuman(543934, { units: "distance" });
i18n.numberToHuman(54393498, { units: "distance" });
i18n.numberToHuman(54393498000, { units: "distance" });
i18n.numberToHuman(343, { units: "distance", precision: 1 });
i18n.numberToHuman(1, { units: "distance" });
i18n.numberToHuman(0.34, { units: "distance" });
Date Formatting
The I18n#localize
(or its alias I18n#l
) can accept a string, epoch time
integer or a Date
object. You can see below the accepted formats:
i18n.l("date.formats.short", "2009-09-18");
i18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-09-18 23:12:43");
i18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-11-09T18:10:34");
i18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-11-09T18:10:34Z");
i18n.l("date.formats.short", 1251862029000);
i18n.l("date.formats.short", "09/18/2009");
i18n.l("date.formats.short", new Date());
You can also add placeholders to the date format:
const i18n = new I18n({
date: {
formats: {
ordinalDay: "%B %{day}",
},
},
});
i18n.l("date.formats.ordinalDay", "2009-09-18", { day: "18th" });
If you prefer, you can use the I18n#toTime
and I18n#strftime
functions
directly to format dates.
var date = new Date();
i18n.toTime("date.formats.short", "2009-09-18");
i18n.toTime("date.formats.short", date);
i18n.strftime(date, "%d/%m/%Y");
The accepted formats for i18n.strftime
are:
%a - The abbreviated weekday name (Sun)
%A - The full weekday name (Sunday)
%b - The abbreviated month name (Jan)
%B - The full month name (January)
%c - The preferred local date and time representation
%d - Day of the month (01..31)
%-d - Day of the month (1..31)
%H - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (00..23)
%-H - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (0..23)
%k - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (0..23)
%I - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (01..12)
%-I - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (1..12)
%l - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (1..12)
%m - Month of the year (01..12)
%-m - Month of the year (1..12)
%M - Minute of the hour (00..59)
%-M - Minute of the hour (0..59)
%p - Meridian indicator (AM or PM)
%P - Meridian indicator (am or pm)
%S - Second of the minute (00..60)
%-S - Second of the minute (0..60)
%w - Day of the week (Sunday is 0, 0..6)
%y - Year without a century (00..99)
%-y - Year without a century (0..99)
%Y - Year with century
%z - Timezone offset (+0545)
%Z - Timezone offset (+0545)
Check out
__tests__/strftime.test.ts
file for more examples!
Finally, you can also diplay relative time strings using I18n#timeAgoInWords
.
const to = new Date();
const from = to.getTime() - 60 * 60 * 1000;
i18n.timeAgoInWords(from, to);
Using pluralization and number formatting together
Sometimes you might want to display translation with formatted number, like
adding thousand delimiters to displayed number You can do this:
const i18n = new I18n({
en: {
points: {
one: "1 Point",
other: "{{points}} Points",
},
},
});
const points = 1234;
i18n.t("points", {
count: points,
points: i18n.toNumber(points),
});
Output should be 1,234 points
.
Other helpers
I18n#toSentence(list, options)
i18n.toSentence(["apple", "banana", "pineapple"]);
Troubleshooting
I'm getting an error like SyntaxError: Unexpected end of JSON input
or Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ;
You may get such error if you're trying to load empty JSON files with
import data from "file.json"
. This has nothing to do with I18n and is related
to how your JSON file is loaded. JSON files must contain valid JSON data.
Similarly, make sure you're writing valid JSON, and not JavaScript. For
instance, if you write something like {};
, you'll get an error like
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ;
.
My JSON contains a flat structure. How can I load and use it with I18n.js?
I18n.js expects a nested object to represent the translation tree. For this
reason, you cannot use an object like the following by default:
{
"en.messages.hello": "hello",
"pt-BR.messages.hello": "olá"
}
One solution is using something like the following to transform your flat into a
nested object:
const { set } = require("lodash");
const from = {
"en.messages.hello": "hello",
"pt-BR.messages.hello": "olá",
};
function flatToNestedObject(target) {
const nested = {};
Object.keys(target).forEach((path) => set(nested, path, target[path]));
return nested;
}
console.log(flatToNestedObject(from));
You can also use something like flat to
perform the same transformation.
Maintainer
Contributors
Contributing
For more details about how to contribute, please read
https://github.com/fnando/i18n/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md.
License
The gem is available as open source under the terms of the
MIT License. A copy of the license can be
found at https://github.com/fnando/i18n/blob/main/LICENSE.md.
Code of Conduct
Everyone interacting in the i18n project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms
and mailing lists is expected to follow the
code of conduct.