i18next-parser

What is i18next-parser?

i18next-parser is a tool that extracts translation keys from your source code to JSON, allowing you to manage and maintain your internationalization (i18n) files more efficiently. It supports various file formats and can be integrated into your build process.

What are i18next-parser's main functionalities?

Extract Translation Keys

This feature allows you to extract translation keys from your source code files and generate JSON files for each locale. The code sample demonstrates how to use i18next-parser to parse JavaScript files in the 'src' directory and output the translations to 'locales/en/translation.json' and 'locales/fr/translation.json'.

const parser = require('i18next-parser');
const fs = require('fs');

const options = {
  locales: ['en', 'fr'],
  output: 'locales/$LOCALE/$NAMESPACE.json'
};

parser.parseFiles('src/**/*.js', options, (err, translations) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  fs.writeFileSync('locales/en/translation.json', JSON.stringify(translations.en, null, 2));
  fs.writeFileSync('locales/fr/translation.json', JSON.stringify(translations.fr, null, 2));
});

Support for Multiple File Formats

i18next-parser supports multiple file formats including JavaScript, JSX, TypeScript, and TSX. The code sample shows how to configure the parser to handle these different file types and extract translations from them.

const parser = require('i18next-parser');
const options = {
  input: ['src/**/*.js', 'src/**/*.jsx', 'src/**/*.ts', 'src/**/*.tsx'],
  output: 'locales/$LOCALE/$NAMESPACE.json'
};

parser.parseFiles(options.input, options, (err, translations) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('Translations extracted successfully');
});

Customizable Output

You can customize the output path and separators for namespaces and keys. The code sample demonstrates how to set a custom output path and define custom separators for namespaces and keys.

const parser = require('i18next-parser');
const options = {
  locales: ['en', 'de'],
  output: 'custom_locales/$LOCALE/$NAMESPACE.json',
  namespaceSeparator: ':',
  keySeparator: '.'
};

parser.parseFiles('src/**/*.js', options, (err, translations) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('Custom output path and separators applied');
});

Other packages similar to i18next-parser

babel-plugin-i18next-extract

babel-plugin-i18next-extract is a Babel plugin that extracts translation keys from your code and generates JSON files for i18next. It integrates directly with Babel, making it a good choice if you are already using Babel in your project. Compared to i18next-parser, it offers a more seamless integration with the Babel build process but may require more setup if you are not using Babel.

react-intl-translations-manager

react-intl-translations-manager is a tool for managing translations in projects using react-intl. It extracts messages from your React components and generates translation files. While it is specifically designed for use with react-intl, it offers similar functionality to i18next-parser in terms of extracting and managing translation keys. However, it is less flexible in terms of file format support and integration with non-React projects.

README

i18next Parser

A simple command line and gulp plugin that lets you parse your code and extract the translations keys in it.

The idea is to parse code files to retrieve the translation keys and create a catalog. You can use the command line or run in the background with Gulp while coding. It removes the pain of maintaining your translation catalog.

Features

• Parses a single file or a directory (recursively or not)
• Parses template files (support for jade, handlebars and data-i18n attribute in html)
• Creates one json file per locale and per namespace.
• Remove old keys your code doesn't use anymore and place them in a namespace_old.json file. It is usefull to avoid losing translations you may want to reuse.
• Restore keys from the _old file if the one in the translation file is empty.
• Handles context keys of the form key_context
• Handles plural keys of the form key_plural and key_plural_0
• Is a stream transform (so it works with gulp)

---

Installation

npm install i18next-parser -g

Tests

mocha --reporter nyan test/test.js

---

CLI Usage

i18next /path/to/file/or/dir [-orpfnl]

• -o, --output : Where to write the locale files.
• -r, --recursive: Is --output is a directory, parses files in sub directories.
• -f, --function : Function names to parse. Defaults to t
• -p, --parser : A custom regex for the parser to use.
• -n, --namespace : Default namespace used in your i18next config. Defaults to translation
• -s, --namespace-separator : Namespace separator used in your translation keys. Defaults to :
• -k, --key-separator : Key separator used in your translation keys. Defaults to .
• -l, --locales : The locales in your applications. Defaults to en,fr

---

Gulp Usage

Gulp defines itself as the streaming build system. Put simply, it is like Grunt, but performant and elegant.

var i18next = require('i18next-parser');

gulp.task('i18next', function() {
    gulp.src('app/**')
        .pipe(i18next({locales: ['en', 'de'], functions: ['__', '_e']}))
        .pipe(gulp.dest('locales'));
});

• output: Where to write the locale files (relative to the base). Defaults to locales
• functions: An array of functions names to parse. Defaults to ['t']
• namespace: Default namespace used in your i18next config. Defaults to translation
• namespaceSeparator: Namespace separator used in your translation keys. Defaults to :
• keySeparator: Key separator used in your translation keys. Defaults to .
• locales: An array of the locales in your applications. Defaults to ['en','fr']
• parser: A custom regex for the parser to use.

Note on paths (why your translations are not saved)

The way gulp works, it take a src(), applies some transformations to the files matched and then render the transformation using the dest() command to a path of your choice. With i18next-parser, the src() takes the path to the files to parse and the dest() takes the path where you want the catalogs of translation keys.

The problem is that the i18next() transform doesn't know about the path you specify in dest(). So it doesn't know where the catalogs are. So it can't merge the result of the parsing with the existing catalogs you may have there.

gulp.src('app/**')
    .pipe(i18next())
    .pipe(gulp.dest('custom/path'));

If you consider the code above, any file that match the app/** pattern will have of base set to app/. As per the vinyl-fs documentation (which powers gulp), the base is the folder relative to the cwd and defaults is where the glob begins.

Bare with me, the output option isn't defined, it defaults to locales. So the i18next() transform will look for files in the app/locales directory (the base plus the output directory). But in reality they are located in custom/path. So for the i18next-parser to find your catalogs, you need the output option:

gulp.src('app/**')
    .pipe(i18next({output: '../custom/path'}))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('custom/path'));

The output option is relative to the base. In our case, we have app/ as a base and we want custom/path. So the output option must be ../custom/path.

Events

The transform emit a reading event for each file it parses:

.pipe( i18next().on('reading', function(path) { }) )

The transform emit a writing event for each file it passes to the stream:

.pipe( i18next().on('reading', function(path) { }) )

The transform emit a json_error event if the JSON.parse on json files fail. It is passed the error name (like SyntaxError) and the error message (like Unexpected token }):

.pipe( i18next().on('reading', function(name, message) { }) )

---

Examples

Change the output directory (cli and gulp)

Command line:

i18next /path/to/file/or/dir -o /output/directory

Gulp:

.pipe(i18next({output: 'translations'}))

It will create the file in the specified folder (in case of gulp it doesn't actually create the files until you call dest()):

/output/directory/en/translation.json
...

Change the locales (cli and gulp)

Command line:

i18next /path/to/file/or/dir -l en,de,sp

Gulp:

.pipe(i18next({locales: ['en', 'de', 'sp']}))

This will create a directory per locale in the output folder:

locales/en/...
locales/de/...
locales/sp/...

Change the default namespace (cli and gulp)

Command line:

i18next /path/to/file/or/dir -n my_default_namespace

Gulp:

.pipe(i18next({namespace: 'my_default_namespace'}))

This will add all the translation from the default namespace in the following file:

locales/en/my_default_namespace.json
...

Change the namespace and key separators (cli and gulp)

Command line:

i18next /path/to/file/or/dir -s '?' -k '_'

Gulp:

.pipe(i18next({namespaceSeparator: '?', keySeparator: '_'}))

This parse the translation keys as follow:

namespace?key_subkey

namespace.json
{
    key: {
        subkey: ''
    }
}
...

Change the translation functions (cli and gulp)

Command line:

i18next /path/to/file/or/dir -f __,_e

Gulp:

.pipe(i18next({functions: ['__', '_e']}))

This will parse any of the following function calls in your code and extract the key:

__('key'
__ 'key'
__("key"
__ "key"
_e('key'
_e 'key'
_e("key"
_e "key"

Note1: we don't match the closing parenthesis as you may want to pass arguments to your translation function.

Note2: the parser is smart about escaped single or double quotes you may have in your key.

Change the regex (cli and gulp)

Command line:

i18next /path/to/file/or/dir -p "(.*)"

Gulp:

.pipe(i18next({parser: '(.*)'}))

If you use a custom regex, the functions option will be ignored. You need to write you regex to parse the functions you want parsed.

You must pass the regex as a string. That means that you will have to properly escape it. Also, the parser will consider the translation key to be the first truthy match of the regex; it means that you must use non capturing blocks (?:) for anything that is not the translation key.

The regex used by default is:

[^a-zA-Z0-9_](?:t)(?:\\(|\\s)\\s*(?:(?:\'((?:(?:\\\\\')?[^\']+)+[^\\\\])\')|(?:"((?:(?:\\\\")?[^"]+)+[^\\\\])"))/g

Filter files and folders (cli)

i18next /path/to/file/or/dir -filterFolder *.hbs,*.js -filterFolder !.git

In recursive mode, it will parse *.hbs and *.js files and skip .git folder. This options is passed to readdirp. To learn more, read their documentation.

Changelog

0.3.3

• Trailing separator in translation keys wasn't handled properly (fix #20)