[ANN] SimpleTranslations package

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SimpleTranslations is a simple way to translate the different messages to users
(including the possible error messages) to different languages.

This package raised as a need utility to translate several error messages to users in different languages without including many dependencies. I hope you could consider it useful.

Usage

The term Simple means that the package is not oriented to be a complex system,
but as a simple and easy to use way to translate messages. For instance, in this
packages all the configuration is in a simple file, mesages.ini, as:

[config]
languages=es,fr,en
default=en

[en]
hi=Hi everybody
...

[es]
hi=Hola a todos
...

[fr]
hi=Bonjour
...

Then, we can load the messages in the different languages:

using SimpleTranslations

# Get the messages from a file
messages = loadmsgs("messages.ini")
# Show the message in the default language
println(get_msg(messages, "hi")) # Return "Hi everybody"
# Change the language to spanish 
set_language!(messages, "es")
println(get_msg(messages, "hi")) # Return "Hola a todos"

Also, when only one file is used, it can be simpler:

using SimpleTranslations

# Get the messages from a file
loadmsgs!("messages.ini")
# Show the message in the default language
println(get_msg("hi")) # Return "Hi everybody"
# Change the language to spanish 
set_language!("es")
println(get_msg("hi")) # Return "Hola a todos"

Advantages

The advantages of using this package is:

  • All the messages are easily changed in a external fine, without changing the
    source code.

  • Add an additional language is very easy, only add content in the file in text
    mode.

  • An optional strict_mode, in which when the file is loaded, it is checked
    that all messages are translated to all supported languages.

Relative Packages

In order to show the values of variables in the messages, it is recommended to
use the package Formatting.jl.

An more powerful and standard way to translate messages is through
Gettext that works on the standards
.po and .mo files. However, this package has several advantages:

  • Gettext.jl currently depends on PyCall, so it implies to include many dependencies.

  • xgettext is a great tool to extract messages from source code, but it is actually not working in Julia.

  • In SimpleTranslations the input format is simpler.

  • SimpleTranslations, at difference of Gettext, allows a strict mode, in which the is throw an error if an error message is not translated to a language.

For more information, you can see the Github Repository and the Documentation.

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