ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler

ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler

Compiler for ngx-translate that uses messageformat.js to compile translations using ICU syntax for handling pluralization and gender

• Installation
• Setup
• About

Installation

This assumes that you've already installed ngx-translate.

Using npm:

npm install ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler messageformat --save

... or if you use yarn:

yarn add ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler messageformat

Setup

You need to configure TranslateModule so it uses TranslateMessageFormatCompiler as the compiler:

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { TranslateCompiler, TranslateModule } from '@ngx-translate/core';
import * as MessageFormat from 'messageformat';
import { TranslateMessageFormatCompiler } from 'ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler';
import { AppComponent } from "./app";

@NgModule({
  imports: [
    BrowserModule,
    TranslateModule.forRoot({
      compiler: {
        provide: TranslateCompiler,
        useFactory: () => new TranslateMessageFormatCompiler(new MessageFormat())
      }
    })
  ],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule {}

Please note that while you can still use nesting in your translations ({ login: { welcome: 'Welcome!' }}) with respective keys (login.welcome), you lose the ability to access object properties in your placeholders: 'Hello {name.first} {name.last}' won't work. Also note that this format uses single braces instead of double braces for placeholders.

About

If you're here, you probably know what you're looking for. If you do wonder what this is, here's a brief explanation.

ICU Message Format is a standardized syntax for dealing with the translation of user-visible strings into various languages that may have different requirements for the correct declension of words (e.g. according to number, gender, case) - or to simplify: pluralization.

Messageformat.js is a compliant implementation for Javascript.

Back in Angular 1, angular-translate, formerly by @PascalPrecht, provided support for ICU syntax using messageformat.js. This compiler "plugin" adds the same rich pluralization support to the excellent ngx-translate. Thanks to @ocombe for his work and his support in getting pluggable compiler support into the core. Thanks also to @PascalPrecht for suggesting a contribution when I talked to him about this at Jazoon.