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6553 :: A localization/internationalization library (same purpose as gettext, but with some improvements)

• iffy1 (orginal) [2020-07-18T04:51:08+02:00] view original

  I've just finished an initial version of a i18n/l10n library for Nim called intl. Take a look and tell me what you think: https://github.com/iffy/nim-intl

  Some of the main reasons for me writing it:

  • You can defer to procs to do things like pluralization.
  • Message extraction happens during compilation. It can also optionally update the catalog files during compilation if you like. No more out of date messages or separate extraction step or compiling the .po files, etc...
  • The message format tracks what needs to be translated and retranslated. It looks like this:

  messages "es":
    done 48392, "greeting", "Hola"
    todo 13482, "yellow", "yellow"
    todo 28392, "red", "red"
    redo 39294, "favorite", "mejor"
    gone 11111, "green", "verde"
    todo 55445, "cats", proc(count:int):string =
      if count == 1:
        return "I have 1 cat"
      else:
        return "I have " & count & " cats."
  Run

  • Almost all the heavy lifting happens in macros/templates, so message lookup ends up just being attribute access:

  echo tr"Hello, World!"
  Run

  becomes

  echo [selectedMessages_myprogram.s_rhellowor71994]
  Run

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• sschwarzer (orginal) [2020-07-18T13:57:47+02:00] view original

  Take a look and tell me what you think: https://github.com/iffy/nim-intl

  I like the approach. :-)

  Here are my ideas/suggestions/bikeshedding. ;-)

  In the README:

  • I think the headings "Installation", "Features" and "Examples" should all be on the same nesting level.
  • "terse" (in "terse message format") usually has a negative connotation. What about "compact"?
  • Add a small section, maybe before "Examples", that outlines the usage (write untranslated messages, run the program to generate the incomplete translations for each language, paste these blocks into the text, edit the pasted code to add your translations). I was at first a bit confused without this information.

  In the code (intl.nim):

  • Since import and export have the same width, it's difficult to see at a glance which lines are imports and which are exports. Maybe use import module; export module or different blocks for imports and exports.
  • The template intlCatalog is veeery long. When I scroll through the code, I have a hard time seeing whether I'm still looking at the template. Split it up?
  • Also the proc staticIntlPostlude is very long. Split it up?
  • The doc comment for proc generateKey seems to be incomplete. Maybe you accidentally deleted a line below the present one.
  • I'd use more whitespace (e. g. for a, b ... instead of for a,b ... and in the signatures).

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