Rocking your application with Rails 2.2 i18n support
I know Sven Fuchs wrote about the Rails i18n core API back in July (when Rails 2.2 was not yet released), but since then, the i18n API has changed a little and now that Rails 2.2 is out I’ll write the steps you need to rock your application with this new excellent support.
1. Configure the I18n module
You need to select the translations files the module will load and the default locale in case the user don’t specify one. As you need to do this only once, you can put the next code in the config/environment.rb file:
I18n.default_locale = "pt-BR" I18n.load_path += Dir.glob("config/locales/*.yml")
Update: We should add elements to the load_path instead of assigning a new array to not overwrite Rails 2.2 provided paths.
2. Set the locale in each request
You need to tell the I18n module which locale it should use in the current process. This can be done in a filter, before the controller executes the action. A good place to do the filter should be the application controller:
before_filter :set_locale def set_locale I18n.locale = params[:locale] || I18n.default_locale end
3. Internationalize
From now on the only thing you need to do is translate and localize, so from any place in your application you can call the translate and localize methods (t and l are alias) , for example:
I18n.t 'store.title' I18n.l Time.now
Now that we know how to get our applications internationalized, I’ll talk about the process.
How does the Rails 2.2 i18n work?
The I18n module stores a backend that implements the localize and translate methods. Every time we call I18n.translate or I18n.localize, the I18n module delegates this calls to the configured backend. Rails 2.2 comes with a default backend called Simple Backend.
The first time the Simple Backend internationalizes something it loads the internationalizations files defined in I18n.load_path .
The internationalizations files
The internationalizations files can be a Ruby Hash or a YAML script:
Ruby Hash
{ :'pt-BR' => { :foo => { :bar => "baz" } } }
YAML
pt-BR:
foo:
bar: bazReloading internationalizations files
If for any reason you are using the Simple Backend and you want to load/reload an internationalization file after the first internationalization has been done you can call the load_translations(*file_names) method:
I18n.backend.load_translations("config/locales/es-PE.yml", "config/locales/en-US.yml")
Update: This is considered a hack because no methods in the backend should be called directly and should only be used for testing purpose, when working with script/console for example.
Update2: Since this post there have been created a new method in the I18n module that reloads the translations:
I18n.reload!This method is not considered a hack! 
More information
If you want to know about interpolation, pluralization, default values and scopes you should read the corresponded sections in the post from Sven Fuchs. I’m not talking about this features here because nothing has changed and because Sven Fuchs did a great thing explaining them in a simple way.
Hey, thanks for the awesome writeup!
Two minor things:
It probably should be:
I18n.load_path += Dir.glob(”config/locales/*.yml”)
so that existing paths (such as those provided by Rails) aren’t overwritten. This is what Karel does in his demo app:
I18n.load_path += Dir[ File.join(RAILS_ROOT, ‘lib’, ‘locale’, ‘*.{rb,yml}’) ]
Also, you might want to add a note that any direct access to the backend should rather be considered a hack
Public I18n methods are always on the I18n module itself, backend implementations might change at any time
Hi Sven, thanks for the corrections, will update the post right now
Eu sai do edge esses dias por uns probs estranhos, voltarei no 2.2.
Bom saber. Anotado…
Valeu denovo! Ah… offtpic here, aquela nossa discussion sobre o autosepc… parece que fix na versao 1.1.11 (25/10)
Hahaha bom saber Marcos. Nem teve tempo de fazer o teste, mas ainda bem parece que temos um problema a menos
O Rails 2.2 RC1 tem se mostrado bem estavel para mim, ate agora tudo andou bem (:
A simple question, Who would provide all the country specific locale ? It seems Rails 2.2 doesn’t. Right ?
Are you talking about the locale files Sanjay? In that case, you have to populate them manually.
I’m trying to build a system that allows users to submit user-generated translations. If I store those user-generated translations in the database, any thoughts on how I do a “merge” the user-generated translations and my default yml file in the load_path?
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This really answered the problem, thank you!
Thanks for spending the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love reading more on this topic.
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