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ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler

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

Example App (StackBlitz)

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Setup
• Usage
• About

Installation

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

Using npm:

npm install ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler @messageformat/core --save

... or if you use yarn:

yarn add ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler @messageformat/core

Something to be aware of if you deploy to strict production environments: Fundamentally, messageformat is a compiler that turns ICU MessageFormat input into JavaScript, and we do this at runtime. This means calling new Function under the hood, which requires allowing unsafe-eval for the script-src Content Security Policy (CSP).

Setup

In the current version, this library supports Angular versions 13+, ngx-translate versions 14+ and messageformat 3. Older versions of this library support older versions of these peer dependencies.

Integration with ngx-translate

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 { TranslateMessageFormatCompiler } from 'ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler';

import { AppComponent } from "./app";

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

You can override the values used when configuring MessageFormat by providing a configuration object for the MESSAGE_FORMAT_CONFIG injection token. Here's the default:

{
  biDiSupport: false,
  formatters: {},
  strictNumberSign: false,
  currency: "USD",
  strictPluralKeys: true,
  throwOnError: false,
  fallbackPrefix: undefined
}

Advanced configuration

MessageFormat instances provide some options to influence its behaviour, among them customFormatters, biDiSupport and strict. Learn about their meaning here: https://messageformat.github.io/messageformat/api/core.messageformatoptions/ (The names used in the MESSAGE_FORMAT_CONFIG object are slightly different for backward-compatibility reasons.)

This is how you would enable bi-directional support and add a custom formatter, for example:

import { MESSAGE_FORMAT_CONFIG } from 'ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler';

@NgModule({
  // ...
  providers: [{
    provide: MESSAGE_FORMAT_CONFIG,
    useValue: {
      biDiSupport: true,
      formatters: { upcase: v => v.toUpperCase() }
    }
  }]

Usage

This library implements neither the syntax used for pluralization (et al) nor the "mechanics" for making translations work in your Angular app. The former is MessageFormat, the latter ngx-translate. Before you assume your problem is with ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler, please consult these ressources:

• Get help on the message syntax for your translation strings: https://messageformat.github.io/messageformat/guide
• Get help on using ngx-translate (loading translations, using HTML tags in your strings, translate pipe vs. directive, etc.): https://github.com/ngx-translate/core

Here's two important differences to ngx-translate's default syntax when using MessageFormat:

• You lose the ability to access object properties in your placeholders: 'Hello {name.first} {name.last}' won't work.
• Simple placeholders are enclosed in single curly braces instead of double curly braces: Hello {name}

Transitioning from ngx-translate default syntax to MessageFormat syntax

If you have to transition on a message-by-message basis, you can do so by configuring a prefix that, if found on the message, will cause the compiler to "ignore" the message. This has the effect of falling back on ngx-translate's default message interpolation.

import { MESSAGE_FORMAT_CONFIG } from 'ngx-translate-messageformat-compiler';

@NgModule({
  // ...
  providers: [{
    provide: MESSAGE_FORMAT_CONFIG,
    useValue: {
      fallbackPrefix: 'your_choice::'
    }
  }]

{
  "uses-messageformat-syntax": "{ COUNT, plural, =0 {There are no results.} one {There is one result.} other {There are # results.}",
  "uses-default-syntax": "'your_choice::Hello {{name}}."
}

Debugging

There are two stages in the translation process:

1. Compiling the message (e.g. Hello {name}) to a function: this fails if the MessageFormat syntax is incorrect, for example.
2. Interpolating parameters (e.g. using Linda as the name in the above message): this fails if the parameters don't "fit" the message.

By default, the errors that get thrown in these two stages are caught and logged to the console, and the original message is returned as the translation. If you do not want this behaviour, pass throwOnError: true in MESSAGE_FORMAT_CONFIG (see above). (Note that this may make all translations fail if there's a syntax error in any message.)

This library also exports TranslateMessageFormatDebugCompiler, which you can use as a drop-in replacement for the regular TranslateMessageFormatCompiler. The debug compiler will log to the console whenever a translation string is compiled to an interpolation function, and whenever such a function is called (with interpolation parameters) to compute the final translated string. The logs may help you figuring out which translation produces an error and the timing of when the individual steps happen.

Here's an example to get you started:

Example

Translation strings:

{
  "things": "There {count, plural, =0{is} one{is} other{are}} {count, plural, =0{} one{a} other{several}} {count, plural, =0{nothing} one{thing} other{things}}",
  "people": "{gender, select, male{He is} female{She is} other{They are}} {how}"
}

View template:

<ul>
  <li translate [translateParams]="{ count: 0 }">things</li>
  <li translate [translateParams]="{ count: 1 }">things</li>
  <li>{{'things' | translate:"{ count: 2 }"}}</li>
</ul>
<ul>
  <li translate [translateParams]="{ gender: 'female', how: 'influential' }">people</li>
  <li translate [translateParams]="{ gender: 'male', how: 'funny' }">people</li>
  <li>{{'people' | translate:"{ how: 'affectionate' }"}}</li>
</ul>

Note that this illustrates using both the directives and the pipe provided by ngx-translate. You don't have to mix them, obviously.

Output:

- There is nothing
- There is a thing
- There are several things

- She is influential
- He is funny
- They are affectionate

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 AngularJS, 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 for Angular (2+). Thanks to @ocombe for his work and his supporting pluggable compilers in the core. Thanks also to @PascalPrecht for suggesting a contribution when I talked to him about this at Jazoon.