node-gettext
Advanced tools
node-gettext is a JavaScript library that provides internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) functionalities. It allows developers to manage translations and localize their applications by using GNU gettext style .po and .mo files.
Loading Translations
This feature allows you to load translation files into the node-gettext instance. The example demonstrates how to read a .po file and add it to the gettext instance under a specific domain.
const Gettext = require('node-gettext');
const fs = require('fs');
const gt = new Gettext();
const translations = fs.readFileSync('path/to/your/translation/file.po');
gt.addTextdomain('your_domain', translations);Translating Strings
This feature allows you to translate strings using the loaded translations. The example shows how to translate the string 'Hello, world!' using the gettext instance.
const translatedString = gt.gettext('Hello, world!');
console.log(translatedString);Setting Locale
This feature allows you to set the locale for translations. The example demonstrates how to set the locale to Spanish ('es') and then translate the string 'Hello, world!'.
gt.setLocale('es');
const translatedString = gt.gettext('Hello, world!');
console.log(translatedString);Plural Forms
This feature allows you to handle plural forms in translations. The example shows how to translate singular and plural forms of a string based on the count.
const singular = gt.ngettext('%d apple', '%d apples', 1);
const plural = gt.ngettext('%d apple', '%d apples', 2);
console.log(singular);
console.log(plural);i18next is a popular internationalization framework for JavaScript. It provides a comprehensive solution for managing translations and supports various backends for loading translations. Compared to node-gettext, i18next offers more flexibility and a wider range of features, including support for nested translations, interpolation, and more.
Polyglot is a lightweight internationalization library for JavaScript. It provides a simple API for managing translations and supports basic pluralization. While it is easier to use and integrate compared to node-gettext, it lacks some of the advanced features and flexibility offered by node-gettext.
MessageFormat is a library for handling both pluralization and gender in translations. It uses ICU MessageFormat syntax, which is more powerful and expressive than the GNU gettext format used by node-gettext. However, it may have a steeper learning curve due to its more complex syntax.
node-gettext is a JavaScript implementation of (a large subset of) gettext, a localization framework originally written in C.
If you just want to parse or compile mo/po files, for use with this library or elsewhere, check out gettext-parser.
NOTE: This is the README for v2 of node-gettext, which introduces several braking changes. You can find the README for v1 here.
debug optionThere are two main differences between node-gettext and GNU's gettext:
LC_MESSAGES, LC_NUMERIC and LC_MONETARY, but since there already is a plethora of great JavaScript libraries to deal with numbers, currencies, dates etc, node-gettext is simply targeted towards strings/phrases. You could say it just assumes the LC_MESSAGES category at all times.bindtextdomain(domain, localesDirPath) and setlocale(category, locale), where these four parameters combined are used to read the appropriate translations file.However, since node-gettext needs to work both on the server in web browsers (which usually is referred to as it being universal or isomorphic JavaScript), it is up to the developer to read translation files from disk or somehow provide it with translations as pure JavaScript objects using addTranslations(locale, domain, translations).
bindtextdomain will be provided as an optional feature in a future release.
npm install --save node-gettext
import Gettext from 'node-gettext'
import swedishTranslations from './translations/sv-SE.json'
const gt = new Gettext()
gt.addTranslations('sv-SE', 'messages', swedishTranslations)
gt.setLocale('sv-SE')
gt.gettext('The world is a funny place')
// -> "Världen är en underlig plats"
// Add translations etc...
gt.on('error', error => console.log('oh nose', error))
gt.gettext('An unrecognized message')
// -> 'oh nose', 'An unrecognized message'
node-gettext expects all translations to be in the format specified by gettext-parser. Therefor, you should use that to parse .mo or .po files.
Here is an example where we read a bunch of translation files from disk and add them to our Gettext instance:
import fs from 'fs'
import path from 'path'
import Gettext from 'node-gettext'
import { po } from 'gettext-parser'
// In this example, our translations are found at
// path/to/locales/LOCALE/DOMAIN.po
const translationsDir = 'path/to/locales'
const locales = ['en', 'fi-FI', 'sv-SE']
const domain = 'messages'
const gt = new Gettext()
locales.forEach((locale) => {
const fileName = `${domain}.po`
const translationsFilePath = path.join(translationsDir, locale, fileName)
const translationsContent = fs.readFileSync(translationsFilePath)
const parsedTranslations = po.parse(translationsContent)
gt.addTranslations(locale, domain, parsedTranslations)
})
StringStringStringStringStringStringStringStringCreates and returns a new Gettext instance.
Returns: Object - A Gettext instance
Params
[options]: Object - A set of options
.sourceLocale: String - The locale that the source code and its texts are written in. Translations for this locale is not necessary..debug: Boolean - Whether to output debug info into the
console.Adds an event listener.
Params
eventName: String - An event namecallback: function - An event handler functionRemoves an event listener.
Params
eventName: String - An event namecallback: function - A previously registered event handler functionStores a set of translations in the set of gettext catalogs.
Params
locale: String - A locale stringdomain: String - A domain nametranslations: Object - An object of gettext-parser JSON shapeExample
gt.addTranslations('sv-SE', 'messages', translationsObject)
Sets the locale to get translated messages for.
Params
locale: String - A localeExample
gt.setLocale('sv-SE')
Sets the default gettext domain.
Params
domain: String - A gettext domain nameExample
gt.setTextDomain('domainname')
StringTranslates a string using the default textdomain
Returns: String - Translation or the original string if no translation was found
Params
msgid: String - String to be translatedExample
gt.gettext('Some text')
StringTranslates a string using a specific domain
Returns: String - Translation or the original string if no translation was found
Params
domain: String - A gettext domain namemsgid: String - String to be translatedExample
gt.dgettext('domainname', 'Some text')
StringTranslates a plural string using the default textdomain
Returns: String - Translation or the original string if no translation was found
Params
msgid: String - String to be translated when count is not pluralmsgidPlural: String - String to be translated when count is pluralcount: Number - Number count for the pluralExample
gt.ngettext('One thing', 'Many things', numberOfThings)
StringTranslates a plural string using a specific textdomain
Returns: String - Translation or the original string if no translation was found
Params
domain: String - A gettext domain namemsgid: String - String to be translated when count is not pluralmsgidPlural: String - String to be translated when count is pluralcount: Number - Number count for the pluralExample
gt.dngettext('domainname', 'One thing', 'Many things', numberOfThings)
StringTranslates a string from a specific context using the default textdomain
Returns: String - Translation or the original string if no translation was found
Params
msgctxt: String - Translation contextmsgid: String - String to be translatedExample
gt.pgettext('sports', 'Back')
StringTranslates a string from a specific context using s specific textdomain
Returns: String - Translation or the original string if no translation was found
Params
domain: String - A gettext domain namemsgctxt: String - Translation contextmsgid: String - String to be translatedExample
gt.dpgettext('domainname', 'sports', 'Back')
StringTranslates a plural string from a specific context using the default textdomain
Returns: String - Translation or the original string if no translation was found
Params
msgctxt: String - Translation contextmsgid: String - String to be translated when count is not pluralmsgidPlural: String - String to be translated when count is pluralcount: Number - Number count for the pluralExample
gt.npgettext('sports', 'Back', '%d backs', numberOfBacks)
StringTranslates a plural string from a specifi context using a specific textdomain
Returns: String - Translation or the original string if no translation was found
Params
domain: String - A gettext domain namemsgctxt: String - Translation contextmsgid: String - String to be translatedmsgidPlural: String - If no translation was found, return this on count!=1count: Number - Number count for the pluralExample
gt.dnpgettext('domainname', 'sports', 'Back', '%d backs', numberOfBacks)
C-style alias for setTextDomain
C-style alias for setLocale
Deprecated
This function will be removed in the final 2.0.0 release.
Version 1 of node-gettext confused domains with locales, which version 2 has corrected. node-gettext also no longer parses files or file paths for you, but accepts only ready-parsed JSON translation objects.
Here is a full list of all breaking changes:
textdomain(domain) is now setLocale(locale)dgettext, dngettext, dpgettext and dnpgettext does not treat the leading domain argument as a locale, but as a domain. To get a translation from a certain locale you need to call setLocale(locale) beforehand.setTextDomain(domain) has been introducedaddTextdomain(domain, file) is now addTranslations(locale, domain, translations)addTranslations(locale, domain, translations) only accepts a JSON object with the shape described in the gettext-parser README. To load translations from .mo or .po files, use gettext-parser, and it will provide you with valid JSON objects._currentDomain is now domaindomains is now catalogs__normalizeDomain(domain) has been replaced by a static method Gettext.getLanguageCode(locale)MIT
FAQs
A JavaScript implementation of gettext, a localization framework
The npm package node-gettext receives a total of 103,806 weekly downloads. As such, node-gettext popularity was classified as popular.
We found that node-gettext demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 2 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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