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<p align="center"> <img width="250" height="58" src="https://github.com/fnando/i18n-js/raw/main/images/i18njs.png" alt="i18n.js"> </p> <p align="center"> A small library to provide the <a href="https://rubygems.org/gems/i18n">i18n</a> translations on the JavaScript. </p> <p align="center"> <a href="https://github.com/fnando/i18n/actions?query=workflow%3Ajs-tests"><img src="https://github.com/fnando/i18n/workflows/js-tests/badge.svg" alt="Tests"></a> <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/i18n-js"><img src="https://img.shields.io/npm/v/i18n-js/latest.svg" alt="npm version"></a> <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/i18n-js"><img src="https://img.shields.io/npm/dt/i18n-js.svg" alt="npm downloads"></a> <a href="https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg" alt="License: MIT"></a> </p>

Installation

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:

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(() => {
    // do something
  });

  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"); //=> Hi!

i18n.locale = "pt-BR";
i18n.t("hello"); //=> Olá!

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" });

If the translation is an array and the entry is a string, values will be interpolated in a shallow way.

const i18n = new I18n({
  en: { messages: ["Hello there!", "Welcome back, %{name}!"] },
});

i18n.t("messages", { name: "John" });
//=> ["Hello there!", "Welcome back, 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.

// As a scope
i18n.t("some.missing.scope", { defaults: [{ scope: "some.existing.scope" }] });

// As a simple translation
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.

// if i18n.defaultLocale = "en" and translation doesn't exist
// for i18n.locale = "de-DE" this key will be taken from "de" locale scope
// or, if that also doesn't exist, from "en" locale scope
i18n.t("some.missing.scope");

Custom fallback rules can also be specified for a specific language. The locale handler must be registered using i18n.locales.register().

i18n.locales.register("no", ["nb", "en"]);

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 }); //=> You have no messages
i18n.t("inbox", { count: 1 }); //=> You have one message
i18n.t("inbox", { count: 2 }); //=> You have 2 messages

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/.

You can also leverage make-plural, rather than writing all your pluralization functions. For this, you must wrap make-plural's function by using useMakePlural({ pluralizer, includeZero, ordinal }):

import { ru } from "make-plural";
import { useMakePlural } from "i18n-js";

i18n.pluralization.register("ru", useMakePlural({ pluralizer: ru }));

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);
// $1,990.99

i18n.l("number", 1990.99);
// 1,990.99

i18n.l("percentage", 123.45);
// 123.450%

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
Examples
i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5);
// => "$1,234,567,890.50"

i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.506);
// => "$1,234,567,890.51"

i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.506, { precision: 3 });
// => "$1,234,567,890.506"

i18n.numberToCurrency("123a456");
// => "$123a456"

i18n.numberToCurrency("123a456", { raise: true });
// => raises exception ("123a456" is not a valid numeric value)

i18n.numberToCurrency(-0.456789, { precision: 0 });
// => "$0"

i18n.numberToCurrency(-1234567890.5, { negativeFormat: "(%u%n)" });
// => "($1,234,567,890.50)"

i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5, {
  unit: "&pound;",
  separator: ",",
  delimiter: "",
});
// => "&pound;1234567890,50"

i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5, {
  unit: "&pound;",
  separator: ",",
  delimiter: "",
  format: "%n %u",
});
// => "1234567890,50 &pound;"

i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5, { stripInsignificantZeros: true });
// => "$1,234,567,890.5"

i18n.numberToCurrency(1234567890.5, { precision: 0, roundMode: "up" });
// => "$1,234,567,891"

I18n#numberToPercentage

Formats a number as a percentage string (e.g., 65%). You can customize the format in the options hash.

Options
Examples
i18n.numberToPercentage(100);
// => "100.000%"

i18n.numberToPercentage("98");
// => "98.000%"

i18n.numberToPercentage(100, { precision: 0 });
// => "100%"

i18n.numberToPercentage(1000, { delimiter: ".", separator: "," });
// => "1.000,000%"

i18n.numberToPercentage(302.24398923423, { precision: 5 });
// => "302.24399%"

i18n.numberToPercentage(1000, { precision: null });
// => "1000%"

i18n.numberToPercentage("98a");
// => "98a%"

i18n.numberToPercentage(100, { format: "%n  %" });
// => "100.000  %"

i18n.numberToPercentage(302.24398923423, { precision: 5, roundMode: "down" });
// => "302.24398%"

I18n#numberToDelimited

Formats a number with grouped thousands using delimiter (e.g., 12,324). You can customize the format in the options object.

Options
Examples
i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678);
// => "12,345,678"

i18n.numberToDelimited("123456");
// => "123,456"

i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678.05);
// => "12,345,678.05"

i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678, { delimiter: "." });
// => "12.345.678"

i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678, { delimiter: "," });
// => "12,345,678"

i18n.numberToDelimited(12345678.05, { separator: " " });
// => "12,345,678 05"

i18n.numberToDelimited("112a");
// => "112a"

i18n.numberToDelimited(98765432.98, { delimiter: " ", separator: "," });
// => "98 765 432,98"

i18n.numberToDelimited("123456.78", {
  delimiterPattern: /(\d+?)(?=(\d\d)+(\d)(?!\d))/g,
});
// => "1,23,456.78"

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
Examples
i18n.numberToRounded(111.2345);
// => "111.235"

i18n.numberToRounded(111.2345, { precision: 2 });
// => "111.23"

i18n.numberToRounded(13, { precision: 5 });
// => "13.00000"

i18n.numberToRounded(389.32314, { precision: 0 });
// => "389"

i18n.numberToRounded(111.2345, { significant: true });
// => "111"

i18n.numberToRounded(111.2345, { precision: 1, significant: true });
// => "100"

i18n.numberToRounded(13, { precision: 5, significant: true });
// => "13.000"

i18n.numberToRounded(13, { precision: null });
// => "13"

i18n.numberToRounded(389.32314, { precision: 0, roundMode: "up" });
// => "390"

i18n.numberToRounded(13, {
  precision: 5,
  significant: true,
  stripInsignificantZeros: true,
});
// => "13"

i18n.numberToRounded(389.32314, { precision: 4, significant: true });
// => "389.3"

i18n.numberToRounded(1111.2345, {
  precision: 2,
  separator: ",",
  delimiter: ".",
});
// => "1.111,23"

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
Examples
i18n.numberToHumanSize(123)
// => "123 Bytes"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234)
// => "1.21 KB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(12345)
// => "12.1 KB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567)
// => "1.18 MB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890)
// => "1.15 GB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890123)
// => "1.12 TB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890123456)
// => "1.1 PB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890123456789)
// => "1.07 EB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567, {precision: 2})
// => "1.2 MB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(483989, precision: 2)
// => "470 KB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(483989, {precision: 2, roundMode: "up"})
// => "480 KB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567, {precision: 2, separator: ","})
// => "1,2 MB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(1234567890123, {precision: 5})
// => "1.1228 TB"

i18n.numberToHumanSize(524288000, {precision: 5})
// => "500 MB"

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
Examples
i18n.numberToHuman(123);
// => "123"

i18n.numberToHuman(1234);
// => "1.23 Thousand"

i18n.numberToHuman(12345);
// => "12.3 Thousand"

i18n.numberToHuman(1234567);
// => "1.23 Million"

i18n.numberToHuman(1234567890);
// => "1.23 Billion"

i18n.numberToHuman(1234567890123);
// => "1.23 Trillion"

i18n.numberToHuman(1234567890123456);
// => "1.23 Quadrillion"

i18n.numberToHuman(1234567890123456789);
// => "1230 Quadrillion"

i18n.numberToHuman(489939, { precision: 2 });
// => "490 Thousand"

i18n.numberToHuman(489939, { precision: 4 });
// => "489.9 Thousand"

i18n.numberToHuman(489939, { precision: 2, roundMode: "down" });
// => "480 Thousand"

i18n.numberToHuman(1234567, { precision: 4, significant: false });
// => "1.2346 Million"

i18n.numberToHuman(1234567, {
  precision: 1,
  separator: ",",
  significant: false,
});
// => "1,2 Million"

i18n.numberToHuman(500000000, { precision: 5 });
// => "500 Million"

i18n.numberToHuman(12345012345, { significant: false });
// => "12.345 Billion"

Non-significant zeros after the decimal separator are stripped out by default (set stripInsignificantZeros to false to change that):

i18n.numberToHuman(12.00001);
// => "12"

i18n.numberToHuman(12.00001, { stripInsignificantZeros: false });
// => "12.0"

You can also use your own custom unit quantifiers:

i18n.numberToHuman(500000, units: { unit: "ml", thousand: "lt" })
// => "500 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" });
// => "544 kilometers"

i18n.numberToHuman(54393498, { units: "distance" });
// => "54400 kilometers"

i18n.numberToHuman(54393498000, { units: "distance" });
// => "54.4 gazillion-distance"

i18n.numberToHuman(343, { units: "distance", precision: 1 });
// => "300 meters"

i18n.numberToHuman(1, { units: "distance" });
// => "1 meter"

i18n.numberToHuman(0.34, { units: "distance" });
// => "34 centimeters"

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:

// yyyy-mm-dd
i18n.l("date.formats.short", "2009-09-18");

// yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss
i18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-09-18 23:12:43");

// JSON format with local Timezone (part of ISO-8601)
i18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-11-09T18:10:34");

// JSON format in UTC (part of ISO-8601)
i18n.l("time.formats.short", "2009-11-09T18:10:34Z");

// Epoch time
i18n.l("date.formats.short", 1251862029000);

// mm/dd/yyyy
i18n.l("date.formats.short", "09/18/2009");

// Date object
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" }); // Sep 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; // ~1h ago.

i18n.timeAgoInWords(from, to);
//=> about 1 hour

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.formatNumber(points),
});

Output should be 1,234 points.

Other helpers

I18n#toSentence(list, options)

i18n.toSentence(["apple", "banana", "pineapple"]);
//=> apple, banana, and pineapple.

Troubleshooting

I'm getting an error like Unable to resolve "make-plural" from "node modules/i18n-js/dist/import/Pluralization.js"

make-plural uses .mjs files. You need to change your build pipeline to also consider these files.

If you're using react-native, you need to change your metro config to consider .mjs. Try doing something like this (you may need to adapt your code based on existing changes).

const { getDefaultConfig } = require("metro-config");

module.exports = (async () => {
  const {
    resolver: { assetExts, sourceExts },
  } = await getDefaultConfig();

  return {
    resolver: {
      sourceExts: [...sourceExts, "mjs"],
    },
  };
})();

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));
// {
//   en: { messages: { hello: 'hello' } },
//   'pt-BR': { messages: { hello: 'olá' } }
// }

You can also use something like flat to perform the same transformation.

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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

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