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<h2>Rails Internationalization (I18n) API</h2><p>The Ruby I18n (shorthand for <em>internationalization</em>) gem which is shipped with Ruby on Rails (starting from Rails 2.2) provides an easy-to-use and extensible framework for <strong>translating your application to a single custom language</strong> other than English or for <strong>providing multi-language support</strong> in your application.</p><p>The process of "internationalization" usually means to abstract all strings and other locale specific bits (such as date or currency formats) out of your application. The process of "localization" means to provide translations and localized formats for these bits.<sup class="footnote" id="footnote-1-ref"><a href="#footnote-1">1</a></sup></p><p>So, in the process of <em>internationalizing</em> your Rails application you have to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ensure you have support for i18n.</li>
<li>Tell Rails where to find locale dictionaries.</li>
<li>Tell Rails how to set, preserve, and switch locales.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the process of <em>localizing</em> your application you'll probably want to do the following three things:</p>
<ul>
<li>Replace or supplement Rails' default locale - e.g. date and time formats, month names, Active Record model names, etc.</li>
<li>Abstract strings in your application into keyed dictionaries - e.g. flash messages, static text in your views, etc.</li>
<li>Store the resulting dictionaries somewhere.</li>
</ul>
<p>This guide will walk you through the I18n API and contains a tutorial on how to internationalize a Rails application from the start.</p><p>After reading this guide, you will know:</p>
<ul>
<li>How I18n works in Ruby on Rails</li>
<li>How to correctly use I18n into a RESTful application in various ways</li>
<li>How to use I18n to translate Active Record errors or Action Mailer E-mail subjects</li>
<li>Some other tools to go further with the translation process of your application</li>
</ul>
<div id="subCol">
<h3 class="chapter"><img src="images/chapters_icon.gif" alt="" />Chapters</h3>
<ol class="chapters">
<li>
<a href="#how-i18n-in-ruby-on-rails-works">How I18n in Ruby on Rails Works</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#the-overall-architecture-of-the-library">The Overall Architecture of the Library</a></li>
<li><a href="#the-public-i18n-api">The Public I18n API</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#setup-the-rails-application-for-internationalization">Setup the Rails Application for Internationalization</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#configure-the-i18n-module">Configure the I18n Module</a></li>
<li><a href="#managing-the-locale-across-requests">Managing the Locale across Requests</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#internationalization-and-localization">Internationalization and Localization</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#abstracting-localized-code">Abstracting Localized Code</a></li>
<li><a href="#providing-translations-for-internationalized-strings">Providing Translations for Internationalized Strings</a></li>
<li><a href="#passing-variables-to-translations">Passing Variables to Translations</a></li>
<li><a href="#adding-date-time-formats">Adding Date/Time Formats</a></li>
<li><a href="#inflection-rules-for-other-locales">Inflection Rules For Other Locales</a></li>
<li><a href="#localized-views">Localized Views</a></li>
<li><a href="#organization-of-locale-files">Organization of Locale Files</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#overview-of-the-i18n-api-features">Overview of the I18n API Features</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#looking-up-translations">Looking up Translations</a></li>
<li><a href="#pluralization">Pluralization</a></li>
<li><a href="#setting-and-passing-a-locale">Setting and Passing a Locale</a></li>
<li><a href="#using-safe-html-translations">Using Safe HTML Translations</a></li>
<li><a href="#translations-for-active-record-models">Translations for Active Record Models</a></li>
<li><a href="#translations-for-action-mailer-e-mail-subjects">Translations for Action Mailer E-Mail Subjects</a></li>
<li><a href="#overview-of-other-built-in-methods-that-provide-i18n-support">Overview of Other Built-In Methods that Provide I18n Support</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#how-to-store-your-custom-translations">How to Store your Custom Translations</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#customize-your-i18n-setup">Customize your I18n Setup</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#using-different-backends">Using Different Backends</a></li>
<li><a href="#using-different-exception-handlers">Using Different Exception Handlers</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#translating-model-content">Translating Model Content</a></li>
<li><a href="#conclusion">Conclusion</a></li>
<li><a href="#contributing-to-rails-i18n">Contributing to Rails I18n</a></li>
<li><a href="#resources">Resources</a></li>
<li><a href="#authors">Authors</a></li>
<li><a href="#footnotes">Footnotes</a></li>
</ol>
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<div class="note"><p>The Ruby I18n framework provides you with all necessary means for internationalization/localization of your Rails application. You may, also use various gems available to add additional functionality or features. See the <a href="https://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n">rails-i18n gem</a> for more information.</p></div><h3 id="how-i18n-in-ruby-on-rails-works"><a class="anchorlink" href="#how-i18n-in-ruby-on-rails-works">1 How I18n in Ruby on Rails Works</a></h3><p>Internationalization is a complex problem. Natural languages differ in so many ways (e.g. in pluralization rules) that it is hard to provide tools for solving all problems at once. For that reason the Rails I18n API focuses on:</p>
<ul>
<li>providing support for English and similar languages out of the box</li>
<li>making it easy to customize and extend everything for other languages</li>
</ul>
<p>As part of this solution, <strong>every static string in the Rails framework</strong> - e.g. Active Record validation messages, time and date formats - <strong>has been internationalized</strong>. <em>Localization</em> of a Rails application means defining translated values for these strings in desired languages.</p><p>To localize store and update <em>content</em> in your application (e.g. translate blog posts), see the <a href="#translating-model-content">Translating model content</a> section.</p><h4 id="the-overall-architecture-of-the-library"><a class="anchorlink" href="#the-overall-architecture-of-the-library">1.1 The Overall Architecture of the Library</a></h4><p>Thus, the Ruby I18n gem is split into two parts:</p>
<ul>
<li>The public API of the i18n framework - a Ruby module with public methods that define how the library works</li>
<li>A default backend (which is intentionally named <em>Simple</em> backend) that implements these methods</li>
</ul>
<p>As a user you should always only access the public methods on the I18n module, but it is useful to know about the capabilities of the backend.</p><div class="note"><p>It is possible to swap the shipped Simple backend with a more powerful one, which would store translation data in a relational database, GetText dictionary, or similar. See section <a href="#using-different-backends">Using different backends</a> below.</p></div><h4 id="the-public-i18n-api"><a class="anchorlink" href="#the-public-i18n-api">1.2 The Public I18n API</a></h4><p>The most important methods of the I18n API are:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
translate # Lookup text translations
localize # Localize Date and Time objects to local formats
</pre>
</div>
<p>These have the aliases #t and #l so you can use them like this:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t 'store.title'
I18n.l Time.now
</pre>
</div>
<p>There are also attribute readers and writers for the following attributes:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
load_path # Announce your custom translation files
locale # Get and set the current locale
default_locale # Get and set the default locale
available_locales # Permitted locales available for the application
enforce_available_locales # Enforce locale permission (true or false)
exception_handler # Use a different exception_handler
backend # Use a different backend
</pre>
</div>
<p>So, let's internationalize a simple Rails application from the ground up in the next chapters!</p><h3 id="setup-the-rails-application-for-internationalization"><a class="anchorlink" href="#setup-the-rails-application-for-internationalization">2 Setup the Rails Application for Internationalization</a></h3><p>There are a few steps to get up and running with I18n support for a Rails application.</p><h4 id="configure-the-i18n-module"><a class="anchorlink" href="#configure-the-i18n-module">2.1 Configure the I18n Module</a></h4><p>Following the <em>convention over configuration</em> philosophy, Rails I18n provides reasonable default translation strings. When different translation strings are needed, they can be overridden.</p><p>Rails adds all <code>.rb</code> and <code>.yml</code> files from the <code>config/locales</code> directory to the <strong>translations load path</strong>, automatically.</p><p>The default <code>en.yml</code> locale in this directory contains a sample pair of translation strings:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
en:
hello: "Hello world"
</pre>
</div>
<p>This means, that in the <code>:en</code> locale, the key <em>hello</em> will map to the <em>Hello world</em> string. Every string inside Rails is internationalized in this way, see for instance Active Model validation messages in the <a href="https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activemodel/lib/active_model/locale/en.yml"><code>activemodel/lib/active_model/locale/en.yml</code></a> file or time and date formats in the <a href="https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activesupport/lib/active_support/locale/en.yml"><code>activesupport/lib/active_support/locale/en.yml</code></a> file. You can use YAML or standard Ruby Hashes to store translations in the default (Simple) backend.</p><p>The I18n library will use <strong>English</strong> as a <strong>default locale</strong>, i.e. if a different locale is not set, <code>:en</code> will be used for looking up translations.</p><div class="note"><p>The i18n library takes a <strong>pragmatic approach</strong> to locale keys (after <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rails-i18n/FN7eLH2-lHA">some discussion</a>), including only the <em>locale</em> ("language") part, like <code>:en</code>, <code>:pl</code>, not the <em>region</em> part, like <code>:en-US</code> or <code>:en-GB</code>, which are traditionally used for separating "languages" and "regional setting" or "dialects". Many international applications use only the "language" element of a locale such as <code>:cs</code>, <code>:th</code>, or <code>:es</code> (for Czech, Thai, and Spanish). However, there are also regional differences within different language groups that may be important. For instance, in the <code>:en-US</code> locale you would have $ as a currency symbol, while in <code>:en-GB</code>, you would have £. Nothing stops you from separating regional and other settings in this way: you just have to provide full "English - United Kingdom" locale in a <code>:en-GB</code> dictionary.</p></div><p>The <strong>translations load path</strong> (<code>I18n.load_path</code>) is an array of paths to files that will be loaded automatically. Configuring this path allows for customization of translations directory structure and file naming scheme.</p><div class="note"><p>The backend lazy-loads these translations when a translation is looked up for the first time. This backend can be swapped with something else even after translations have already been announced.</p></div><p>You can change the default locale as well as configure the translations load paths in <code>config/application.rb</code> as follows:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
config.i18n.load_path += Dir[Rails.root.join('my', 'locales', '*.{rb,yml}')]
config.i18n.default_locale = :de
</pre>
</div>
<p>The load path must be specified before any translations are looked up. To change the default locale from an initializer instead of <code>config/application.rb</code>:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/initializers/locale.rb
# Where the I18n library should search for translation files
I18n.load_path += Dir[Rails.root.join('lib', 'locale', '*.{rb,yml}')]
# Permitted locales available for the application
I18n.available_locales = [:en, :pt]
# Set default locale to something other than :en
I18n.default_locale = :pt
</pre>
</div>
<p>Note that appending directly to <code>I18n.load_paths</code> instead of to the application's configured i18n will <em>not</em> override translations from external gems.</p><h4 id="managing-the-locale-across-requests"><a class="anchorlink" href="#managing-the-locale-across-requests">2.2 Managing the Locale across Requests</a></h4><p>The default locale is used for all translations unless <code>I18n.locale</code> is explicitly set.</p><p>A localized application will likely need to provide support for multiple locales. To accomplish this, the locale should be set at the beginning of each request so that all strings are translated using the desired locale during the lifetime of that request.</p><p>The locale can be set in an <code>around_action</code> in the <code>ApplicationController</code>:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
around_action :switch_locale
def switch_locale(&action)
locale = params[:locale] || I18n.default_locale
I18n.with_locale(locale, &action)
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>This example illustrates this using a URL query parameter to set the locale (e.g. <code>http://example.com/books?locale=pt</code>). With this approach, <code>http://localhost:3000?locale=pt</code> renders the Portuguese localization, while <code>http://localhost:3000?locale=de</code> loads a German localization.</p><p>The locale can be set using one of many different approaches.</p><h5 id="setting-the-locale-from-the-domain-name"><a class="anchorlink" href="#setting-the-locale-from-the-domain-name">2.2.1 Setting the Locale from the Domain Name</a></h5><p>One option you have is to set the locale from the domain name where your application runs. For example, we want <code>www.example.com</code> to load the English (or default) locale, and <code>www.example.es</code> to load the Spanish locale. Thus the <em>top-level domain name</em> is used for locale setting. This has several advantages:</p>
<ul>
<li>The locale is an <em>obvious</em> part of the URL.</li>
<li>People intuitively grasp in which language the content will be displayed.</li>
<li>It is very trivial to implement in Rails.</li>
<li>Search engines seem to like that content in different languages lives at different, inter-linked domains.</li>
</ul>
<p>You can implement it like this in your <code>ApplicationController</code>:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
around_action :switch_locale
def switch_locale(&action)
locale = extract_locale_from_tld || I18n.default_locale
I18n.with_locale(locale, &action)
end
# Get locale from top-level domain or return +nil+ if such locale is not available
# You have to put something like:
# 127.0.0.1 application.com
# 127.0.0.1 application.it
# 127.0.0.1 application.pl
# in your /etc/hosts file to try this out locally
def extract_locale_from_tld
parsed_locale = request.host.split('.').last
I18n.available_locales.map(&:to_s).include?(parsed_locale) ? parsed_locale : nil
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>We can also set the locale from the <em>subdomain</em> in a very similar way:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# Get locale code from request subdomain (like http://it.application.local:3000)
# You have to put something like:
# 127.0.0.1 gr.application.local
# in your /etc/hosts file to try this out locally
def extract_locale_from_subdomain
parsed_locale = request.subdomains.first
I18n.available_locales.map(&:to_s).include?(parsed_locale) ? parsed_locale : nil
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>If your application includes a locale switching menu, you would then have something like this in it:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
link_to("Deutsch", "#{APP_CONFIG[:deutsch_website_url]}#{request.env['PATH_INFO']}")
</pre>
</div>
<p>assuming you would set <code>APP_CONFIG[:deutsch_website_url]</code> to some value like <code>http://www.application.de</code>.</p><p>This solution has aforementioned advantages, however, you may not be able or may not want to provide different localizations ("language versions") on different domains. The most obvious solution would be to include locale code in the URL params (or request path).</p><h5 id="setting-the-locale-from-url-params"><a class="anchorlink" href="#setting-the-locale-from-url-params">2.2.2 Setting the Locale from URL Params</a></h5><p>The most usual way of setting (and passing) the locale would be to include it in URL params, as we did in the <code>I18n.with_locale(params[:locale], &action)</code> <em>around_action</em> in the first example. We would like to have URLs like <code>www.example.com/books?locale=ja</code> or <code>www.example.com/ja/books</code> in this case.</p><p>This approach has almost the same set of advantages as setting the locale from the domain name: namely that it's RESTful and in accord with the rest of the World Wide Web. It does require a little bit more work to implement, though.</p><p>Getting the locale from <code>params</code> and setting it accordingly is not hard; including it in every URL and thus <strong>passing it through the requests</strong> is. To include an explicit option in every URL, e.g. <code>link_to(books_url(locale: I18n.locale))</code>, would be tedious and probably impossible, of course.</p><p>Rails contains infrastructure for "centralizing dynamic decisions about the URLs" in its <a href="http://edgeapi.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionDispatch/Routing/Mapper/Base.html#method-i-default_url_options"><code>ApplicationController#default_url_options</code></a>, which is useful precisely in this scenario: it enables us to set "defaults" for <a href="http://edgeapi.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionDispatch/Routing/UrlFor.html#method-i-url_for"><code>url_for</code></a> and helper methods dependent on it (by implementing/overriding <code>default_url_options</code>).</p><p>We can include something like this in our <code>ApplicationController</code> then:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
def default_url_options
{ locale: I18n.locale }
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>Every helper method dependent on <code>url_for</code> (e.g. helpers for named routes like <code>root_path</code> or <code>root_url</code>, resource routes like <code>books_path</code> or <code>books_url</code>, etc.) will now <strong>automatically include the locale in the query string</strong>, like this: <code>http://localhost:3001/?locale=ja</code>.</p><p>You may be satisfied with this. It does impact the readability of URLs, though, when the locale "hangs" at the end of every URL in your application. Moreover, from the architectural standpoint, locale is usually hierarchically above the other parts of the application domain: and URLs should reflect this.</p><p>You probably want URLs to look like this: <code>http://www.example.com/en/books</code> (which loads the English locale) and <code>http://www.example.com/nl/books</code> (which loads the Dutch locale). This is achievable with the "over-riding <code>default_url_options</code>" strategy from above: you just have to set up your routes with <a href="http://edgeapi.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionDispatch/Routing/Mapper/Scoping.html"><code>scope</code></a>:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/routes.rb
scope "/:locale" do
resources :books
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>Now, when you call the <code>books_path</code> method you should get <code>"/en/books"</code> (for the default locale). A URL like <code>http://localhost:3001/nl/books</code> should load the Dutch locale, then, and following calls to <code>books_path</code> should return <code>"/nl/books"</code> (because the locale changed).</p><div class="warning"><p>Since the return value of <code>default_url_options</code> is cached per request, the URLs in a locale selector cannot be generated invoking helpers in a loop that sets the corresponding <code>I18n.locale</code> in each iteration. Instead, leave <code>I18n.locale</code> untouched, and pass an explicit <code>:locale</code> option to the helper, or edit <code>request.original_fullpath</code>.</p></div><p>If you don't want to force the use of a locale in your routes you can use an optional path scope (denoted by the parentheses) like so:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/routes.rb
scope "(:locale)", locale: /en|nl/ do
resources :books
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>With this approach you will not get a <code>Routing Error</code> when accessing your resources such as <code>http://localhost:3001/books</code> without a locale. This is useful for when you want to use the default locale when one is not specified.</p><p>Of course, you need to take special care of the root URL (usually "homepage" or "dashboard") of your application. A URL like <code>http://localhost:3001/nl</code> will not work automatically, because the <code>root to: "books#index"</code> declaration in your <code>routes.rb</code> doesn't take locale into account. (And rightly so: there's only one "root" URL.)</p><p>You would probably need to map URLs like these:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/routes.rb
get '/:locale' => 'dashboard#index'
</pre>
</div>
<p>Do take special care about the <strong>order of your routes</strong>, so this route declaration does not "eat" other ones. (You may want to add it directly before the <code>root :to</code> declaration.)</p><div class="note"><p>Have a look at various gems which simplify working with routes: <a href="https://github.com/svenfuchs/routing-filter/tree/master">routing_filter</a>, <a href="https://github.com/francesc/rails-translate-routes">rails-translate-routes</a>, <a href="https://github.com/enriclluelles/route_translator">route_translator</a>.</p></div><h5 id="setting-the-locale-from-user-preferences"><a class="anchorlink" href="#setting-the-locale-from-user-preferences">2.2.3 Setting the Locale from User Preferences</a></h5><p>An application with authenticated users may allow users to set a locale preference through the application's interface. With this approach, a user's selected locale preference is persisted in the database and used to set the locale for authenticated requests by that user.</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
around_action :switch_locale
def switch_locale(&action)
locale = current_user.try(:locale) || I18n.default_locale
I18n.with_locale(locale, &action)
end
</pre>
</div>
<h5 id="choosing-an-implied-locale"><a class="anchorlink" href="#choosing-an-implied-locale">2.2.4 Choosing an Implied Locale</a></h5><p>When an explicit locale has not been set for a request (e.g. via one of the above methods), an application should attempt to infer the desired locale.</p><h6 id="inferring-locale-from-the-language-header"><a class="anchorlink" href="#inferring-locale-from-the-language-header">2.2.4.1 Inferring Locale from the Language Header</a></h6><p>The <code>Accept-Language</code> HTTP header indicates the preferred language for request's response. Browsers <a href="http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-priorities">set this header value based on the user's language preference settings</a>, making it a good first choice when inferring a locale.</p><p>A trivial implementation of using an <code>Accept-Language</code> header would be:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
def switch_locale(&action)
logger.debug "* Accept-Language: #{request.env['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']}"
locale = extract_locale_from_accept_language_header
logger.debug "* Locale set to '#{I18n.locale}'"
I18n.with_locale(locale, &action)
end
private
def extract_locale_from_accept_language_header
request.env['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'].scan(/^[a-z]{2}/).first
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>In practice, more robust code is necessary to do this reliably. Iain Hecker's <a href="https://github.com/iain/http_accept_language/tree/master">http_accept_language</a> library or Ryan Tomayko's <a href="https://github.com/rack/rack-contrib/blob/master/lib/rack/contrib/locale.rb">locale</a> Rack middleware provide solutions to this problem.</p><h6 id="inferring-the-locale-from-ip-geolocation"><a class="anchorlink" href="#inferring-the-locale-from-ip-geolocation">2.2.4.2 Inferring the Locale from IP Geolocation</a></h6><p>The IP address of the client making the request can be used to infer the client's region and thus their locale. Services such as <a href="http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecountry">GeoIP Lite Country</a> or gems like <a href="https://github.com/alexreisner/geocoder">geocoder</a> can be used to implement this approach.</p><p>In general, this approach is far less reliable than using the language header and is not recommended for most web applications.</p><h5 id="storing-the-locale-from-the-session-or-cookies"><a class="anchorlink" href="#storing-the-locale-from-the-session-or-cookies">2.2.5 Storing the Locale from the Session or Cookies</a></h5><div class="warning"><p>You may be tempted to store the chosen locale in a <em>session</em> or a <em>cookie</em>. However, <strong>do not do this</strong>. The locale should be transparent and a part of the URL. This way you won't break people's basic assumptions about the web itself: if you send a URL to a friend, they should see the same page and content as you. A fancy word for this would be that you're being <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer"><em>RESTful</em></a>. Read more about the RESTful approach in <a href="https://www.infoq.com/articles/rest-introduction">Stefan Tilkov's articles</a>. Sometimes there are exceptions to this rule and those are discussed below.</p></div><h3 id="internationalization-and-localization"><a class="anchorlink" href="#internationalization-and-localization">3 Internationalization and Localization</a></h3><p>OK! Now you've initialized I18n support for your Ruby on Rails application and told it which locale to use and how to preserve it between requests.</p><p>Next we need to <em>internationalize</em> our application by abstracting every locale-specific element. Finally, we need to <em>localize</em> it by providing necessary translations for these abstracts.</p><p>Given the following example:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/routes.rb
Rails.application.routes.draw do
root to: "home#index"
end
</pre>
</div>
<div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
around_action :switch_locale
def switch_locale(&action)
locale = params[:locale] || I18n.default_locale
I18n.with_locale(locale, &action)
end
end
</pre>
</div>
<div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/controllers/home_controller.rb
class HomeController < ApplicationController
def index
flash[:notice] = "Hello Flash"
end
end
</pre>
</div>
<div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; html-script: true; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/views/home/index.html.erb
<h1>Hello World</h1>
<p><%= flash[:notice] %></p>
</pre>
</div>
<p><img src="images/i18n/demo_untranslated.png" alt="rails i18n demo untranslated"></p><h4 id="abstracting-localized-code"><a class="anchorlink" href="#abstracting-localized-code">3.1 Abstracting Localized Code</a></h4><p>There are two strings in our code that are in English and that users will be rendered in our response ("Hello Flash" and "Hello World"). In order to internationalize this code, these strings need to be replaced by calls to Rails' <code>#t</code> helper with an appropriate key for each string:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/controllers/home_controller.rb
class HomeController < ApplicationController
def index
flash[:notice] = t(:hello_flash)
end
end
</pre>
</div>
<div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; html-script: true; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/views/home/index.html.erb
<h1><%= t :hello_world %></h1>
<p><%= flash[:notice] %></p>
</pre>
</div>
<p>Now, when this view is rendered, it will show an error message which tells you that the translations for the keys <code>:hello_world</code> and <code>:hello_flash</code> are missing.</p><p><img src="images/i18n/demo_translation_missing.png" alt="rails i18n demo translation missing"></p><div class="note"><p>Rails adds a <code>t</code> (<code>translate</code>) helper method to your views so that you do not need to spell out <code>I18n.t</code> all the time. Additionally this helper will catch missing translations and wrap the resulting error message into a <code><span class="translation_missing"></code>.</p></div><h4 id="providing-translations-for-internationalized-strings"><a class="anchorlink" href="#providing-translations-for-internationalized-strings">3.2 Providing Translations for Internationalized Strings</a></h4><p>Add the missing translations into the translation dictionary files:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/locales/en.yml
en:
hello_world: Hello world!
hello_flash: Hello flash!
# config/locales/pirate.yml
pirate:
hello_world: Ahoy World
hello_flash: Ahoy Flash
</pre>
</div>
<p>Because the <code>default_locale</code> hasn't changed, translations use the <code>:en</code> locale and the response renders the english strings:</p><p><img src="images/i18n/demo_translated_en.png" alt="rails i18n demo translated to English"></p><p>If the locale is set via the URL to the pirate locale (<code>http://localhost:3000?locale=pirate</code>), the response renders the pirate strings:</p><p><img src="images/i18n/demo_translated_pirate.png" alt="rails i18n demo translated to pirate"></p><div class="note"><p>You need to restart the server when you add new locale files.</p></div><p>You may use YAML (<code>.yml</code>) or plain Ruby (<code>.rb</code>) files for storing your translations in SimpleStore. YAML is the preferred option among Rails developers. However, it has one big disadvantage. YAML is very sensitive to whitespace and special characters, so the application may not load your dictionary properly. Ruby files will crash your application on first request, so you may easily find what's wrong. (If you encounter any "weird issues" with YAML dictionaries, try putting the relevant portion of your dictionary into a Ruby file.)</p><p>If your translations are stored in YAML files, certain keys must be escaped. They are:</p>
<ul>
<li>true, on, yes</li>
<li>false, off, no</li>
</ul>
<p>Examples:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/locales/en.yml
en:
success:
'true': 'True!'
'on': 'On!'
'false': 'False!'
failure:
true: 'True!'
off: 'Off!'
false: 'False!'
</pre>
</div>
<div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t 'success.true' # => 'True!'
I18n.t 'success.on' # => 'On!'
I18n.t 'success.false' # => 'False!'
I18n.t 'failure.false' # => Translation Missing
I18n.t 'failure.off' # => Translation Missing
I18n.t 'failure.true' # => Translation Missing
</pre>
</div>
<h4 id="passing-variables-to-translations"><a class="anchorlink" href="#passing-variables-to-translations">3.3 Passing Variables to Translations</a></h4><p>One key consideration for successfully internationalizing an application is to
avoid making incorrect assumptions about grammar rules when abstracting localized
code. Grammar rules that seem fundamental in one locale may not hold true in
another one.</p><p>Improper abstraction is shown in the following example, where assumptions are
made about the ordering of the different parts of the translation. Note that Rails
provides a <code>number_to_currency</code> helper to handle the following case.</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; html-script: true; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/views/products/show.html.erb
<%= "#{t('currency')}#{@product.price}" %>
</pre>
</div>
<div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/locales/en.yml
en:
currency: "$"
# config/locales/es.yml
es:
currency: "€"
</pre>
</div>
<p>If the product's price is 10 then the proper translation for Spanish is "10 €"
instead of "€10" but the abstraction cannot give it.</p><p>To create proper abstraction, the I18n gem ships with a feature called variable
interpolation that allows you to use variables in translation definitions and
pass the values for these variables to the translation method.</p><p>Proper abstraction is shown in the following example:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; html-script: true; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/views/products/show.html.erb
<%= t('product_price', price: @product.price) %>
</pre>
</div>
<div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/locales/en.yml
en:
product_price: "$%{price}"
# config/locales/es.yml
es:
product_price: "%{price} €"
</pre>
</div>
<p>All grammatical and punctuation decisions are made in the definition itself, so
the abstraction can give a proper translation.</p><div class="note"><p>The <code>default</code> and <code>scope</code> keywords are reserved and can't be used as
variable names. If used, an <code>I18n::ReservedInterpolationKey</code> exception is raised.
If a translation expects an interpolation variable, but this has not been passed
to <code>#translate</code>, an <code>I18n::MissingInterpolationArgument</code> exception is raised.</p></div><h4 id="adding-date-time-formats"><a class="anchorlink" href="#adding-date-time-formats">3.4 Adding Date/Time Formats</a></h4><p>OK! Now let's add a timestamp to the view, so we can demo the <strong>date/time localization</strong> feature as well. To localize the time format you pass the Time object to <code>I18n.l</code> or (preferably) use Rails' <code>#l</code> helper. You can pick a format by passing the <code>:format</code> option - by default the <code>:default</code> format is used.</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; html-script: true; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/views/home/index.html.erb
<h1><%= t :hello_world %></h1>
<p><%= flash[:notice] %></p>
<p><%= l Time.now, format: :short %></p>
</pre>
</div>
<p>And in our pirate translations file let's add a time format (it's already there in Rails' defaults for English):</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/locales/pirate.yml
pirate:
time:
formats:
short: "arrrround %H'ish"
</pre>
</div>
<p>So that would give you:</p><p><img src="images/i18n/demo_localized_pirate.png" alt="rails i18n demo localized time to pirate"></p><div class="info"><p>Right now you might need to add some more date/time formats in order to make the I18n backend work as expected (at least for the 'pirate' locale). Of course, there's a great chance that somebody already did all the work by <strong>translating Rails' defaults for your locale</strong>. See the <a href="https://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n/tree/master/rails/locale">rails-i18n repository at GitHub</a> for an archive of various locale files. When you put such file(s) in <code>config/locales/</code> directory, they will automatically be ready for use.</p></div><h4 id="inflection-rules-for-other-locales"><a class="anchorlink" href="#inflection-rules-for-other-locales">3.5 Inflection Rules For Other Locales</a></h4><p>Rails allows you to define inflection rules (such as rules for singularization and pluralization) for locales other than English. In <code>config/initializers/inflections.rb</code>, you can define these rules for multiple locales. The initializer contains a default example for specifying additional rules for English; follow that format for other locales as you see fit.</p><h4 id="localized-views"><a class="anchorlink" href="#localized-views">3.6 Localized Views</a></h4><p>Let's say you have a <em>BooksController</em> in your application. Your <em>index</em> action renders content in <code>app/views/books/index.html.erb</code> template. When you put a <em>localized variant</em> of this template: <code>index.es.html.erb</code> in the same directory, Rails will render content in this template, when the locale is set to <code>:es</code>. When the locale is set to the default locale, the generic <code>index.html.erb</code> view will be used. (Future Rails versions may well bring this <em>automagic</em> localization to assets in <code>public</code>, etc.)</p><p>You can make use of this feature, e.g. when working with a large amount of static content, which would be clumsy to put inside YAML or Ruby dictionaries. Bear in mind, though, that any change you would like to do later to the template must be propagated to all of them.</p><h4 id="organization-of-locale-files"><a class="anchorlink" href="#organization-of-locale-files">3.7 Organization of Locale Files</a></h4><p>When you are using the default SimpleStore shipped with the i18n library,
dictionaries are stored in plain-text files on the disk. Putting translations
for all parts of your application in one file per locale could be hard to
manage. You can store these files in a hierarchy which makes sense to you.</p><p>For example, your <code>config/locales</code> directory could look like this:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
|-defaults
|---es.rb
|---en.rb
|-models
|---book
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
|-views
|---defaults
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
|---books
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
|---users
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
|---navigation
|-----es.rb
|-----en.rb
</pre>
</div>
<p>This way, you can separate model and model attribute names from text inside views, and all of this from the "defaults" (e.g. date and time formats). Other stores for the i18n library could provide different means of such separation.</p><div class="note"><p>The default locale loading mechanism in Rails does not load locale files in nested dictionaries, like we have here. So, for this to work, we must explicitly tell Rails to look further:</p></div><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/application.rb
config.i18n.load_path += Dir[Rails.root.join('config', 'locales', '**', '*.{rb,yml}')]
</pre>
</div>
<h3 id="overview-of-the-i18n-api-features"><a class="anchorlink" href="#overview-of-the-i18n-api-features">4 Overview of the I18n API Features</a></h3><p>You should have a good understanding of using the i18n library now and know how
to internationalize a basic Rails application. In the following chapters, we'll
cover its features in more depth.</p><p>These chapters will show examples using both the <code>I18n.translate</code> method as well as the <a href="http://edgeapi.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/TranslationHelper.html#method-i-translate"><code>translate</code> view helper method</a> (noting the additional feature provide by the view helper method).</p><p>Covered are features like these:</p>
<ul>
<li>looking up translations</li>
<li>interpolating data into translations</li>
<li>pluralizing translations</li>
<li>using safe HTML translations (view helper method only)</li>
<li>localizing dates, numbers, currency, etc.</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="looking-up-translations"><a class="anchorlink" href="#looking-up-translations">4.1 Looking up Translations</a></h4><h5 id="basic-lookup-scopes-and-nested-keys"><a class="anchorlink" href="#basic-lookup-scopes-and-nested-keys">4.1.1 Basic Lookup, Scopes, and Nested Keys</a></h5><p>Translations are looked up by keys which can be both Symbols or Strings, so these calls are equivalent:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t :message
I18n.t 'message'
</pre>
</div>
<p>The <code>translate</code> method also takes a <code>:scope</code> option which can contain one or more additional keys that will be used to specify a "namespace" or scope for a translation key:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t :record_invalid, scope: [:activerecord, :errors, :messages]
</pre>
</div>
<p>This looks up the <code>:record_invalid</code> message in the Active Record error messages.</p><p>Additionally, both the key and scopes can be specified as dot-separated keys as in:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.translate "activerecord.errors.messages.record_invalid"
</pre>
</div>
<p>Thus the following calls are equivalent:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t 'activerecord.errors.messages.record_invalid'
I18n.t 'errors.messages.record_invalid', scope: :activerecord
I18n.t :record_invalid, scope: 'activerecord.errors.messages'
I18n.t :record_invalid, scope: [:activerecord, :errors, :messages]
</pre>
</div>
<h5 id="defaults"><a class="anchorlink" href="#defaults">4.1.2 Defaults</a></h5><p>When a <code>:default</code> option is given, its value will be returned if the translation is missing:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t :missing, default: 'Not here'
# => 'Not here'
</pre>
</div>
<p>If the <code>:default</code> value is a Symbol, it will be used as a key and translated. One can provide multiple values as default. The first one that results in a value will be returned.</p><p>E.g., the following first tries to translate the key <code>:missing</code> and then the key <code>:also_missing.</code> As both do not yield a result, the string "Not here" will be returned:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t :missing, default: [:also_missing, 'Not here']
# => 'Not here'
</pre>
</div>
<h5 id="bulk-and-namespace-lookup"><a class="anchorlink" href="#bulk-and-namespace-lookup">4.1.3 Bulk and Namespace Lookup</a></h5><p>To look up multiple translations at once, an array of keys can be passed:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t [:odd, :even], scope: 'errors.messages'
# => ["must be odd", "must be even"]
</pre>
</div>
<p>Also, a key can translate to a (potentially nested) hash of grouped translations. E.g., one can receive <em>all</em> Active Record error messages as a Hash with:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t 'activerecord.errors.messages'
# => {:inclusion=>"is not included in the list", :exclusion=> ... }
</pre>
</div>
<p>If you want to perform interpolation on a bulk hash of translations, you need to pass <code>deep_interpolation: true</code> as a parameter. When you have the following dictionary:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
en:
welcome:
title: "Welcome!"
content: "Welcome to the %{app_name}"
</pre>
</div>
<p>then the nested interpolation will be ignored without the setting:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t 'welcome', app_name: 'book store'
# => {:title=>"Welcome!", :content=>"Welcome to the %{app_name}"}
I18n.t 'welcome', deep_interpolation: true, app_name: 'book store'
# => {:title=>"Welcome!", :content=>"Welcome to the book store"}
</pre>
</div>
<h5 id="lazy-lookup"><a class="anchorlink" href="#lazy-lookup">4.1.4 "Lazy" Lookup</a></h5><p>Rails implements a convenient way to look up the locale inside <em>views</em>. When you have the following dictionary:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
es:
books:
index:
title: "Título"
</pre>
</div>
<p>you can look up the <code>books.index.title</code> value <strong>inside</strong> <code>app/views/books/index.html.erb</code> template like this (note the dot):</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; html-script: true; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
<%= t '.title' %>
</pre>
</div>
<div class="note"><p>Automatic translation scoping by partial is only available from the <code>translate</code> view helper method.</p></div><p>"Lazy" lookup can also be used in controllers:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
en:
books:
create:
success: Book created!
</pre>
</div>
<p>This is useful for setting flash messages for instance:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
class BooksController < ApplicationController
def create
# ...
redirect_to books_url, notice: t('.success')
end
end
</pre>
</div>
<h4 id="pluralization"><a class="anchorlink" href="#pluralization">4.2 Pluralization</a></h4><p>In many languages — including English — there are only two forms, a singular and a plural, for
a given string, e.g. "1 message" and "2 messages". Other languages (<a href="http://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html#ar">Arabic</a>, <a href="http://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html#ja">Japanese</a>, <a href="http://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html#ru">Russian</a> and many more) have different grammars that have additional or fewer <a href="http://cldr.unicode.org/index/cldr-spec/plural-rules">plural forms</a>. Thus, the I18n API provides a flexible pluralization feature.</p><p>The <code>:count</code> interpolation variable has a special role in that it both is interpolated to the translation and used to pick a pluralization from the translations according to the pluralization rules defined in the
pluralization backend. By default, only the English pluralization rules are applied.</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.backend.store_translations :en, inbox: {
zero: 'no messages', # optional
one: 'one message',
other: '%{count} messages'
}
I18n.translate :inbox, count: 2
# => '2 messages'
I18n.translate :inbox, count: 1
# => 'one message'
I18n.translate :inbox, count: 0
# => 'no messages'
</pre>
</div>
<p>The algorithm for pluralizations in <code>:en</code> is as simple as:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
lookup_key = :zero if count == 0 && entry.has_key?(:zero)
lookup_key ||= count == 1 ? :one : :other
entry[lookup_key]
</pre>
</div>
<p>The translation denoted as <code>:one</code> is regarded as singular, and the <code>:other</code> is used as plural. If the count is zero, and a <code>:zero</code> entry is present, then it will be used instead of <code>:other</code>.</p><p>If the lookup for the key does not return a Hash suitable for pluralization, an <code>I18n::InvalidPluralizationData</code> exception is raised.</p><h5 id="locale-specific-rules"><a class="anchorlink" href="#locale-specific-rules">4.2.1 Locale-specific rules</a></h5><p>The I18n gem provides a Pluralization backend that can be used to enable locale-specific rules. Include it
to the Simple backend, then add the localized pluralization algorithms to translation store, as <code>i18n.plural.rule</code>.</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n::Backend::Simple.include(I18n::Backend::Pluralization)
I18n.backend.store_translations :pt, i18n: { plural: { rule: lambda { |n| [0, 1].include?(n) ? :one : :other } } }
I18n.backend.store_translations :pt, apples: { one: 'one or none', other: 'more than one' }
I18n.t :apples, count: 0, locale: :pt
# => 'one or none'
</pre>
</div>
<p>Alternatively, the separate gem <a href="https://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n">rails-i18n</a> can be used to provide a fuller set of locale-specific pluralization rules.</p><h4 id="setting-and-passing-a-locale"><a class="anchorlink" href="#setting-and-passing-a-locale">4.3 Setting and Passing a Locale</a></h4><p>The locale can be either set pseudo-globally to <code>I18n.locale</code> (which uses <code>Thread.current</code> like, e.g., <code>Time.zone</code>) or can be passed as an option to <code>#translate</code> and <code>#localize</code>.</p><p>If no locale is passed, <code>I18n.locale</code> is used:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.locale = :de
I18n.t :foo
I18n.l Time.now
</pre>
</div>
<p>Explicitly passing a locale:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.t :foo, locale: :de
I18n.l Time.now, locale: :de
</pre>
</div>
<p>The <code>I18n.locale</code> defaults to <code>I18n.default_locale</code> which defaults to :<code>en</code>. The default locale can be set like this:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
I18n.default_locale = :de
</pre>
</div>
<h4 id="using-safe-html-translations"><a class="anchorlink" href="#using-safe-html-translations">4.4 Using Safe HTML Translations</a></h4><p>Keys with a '_html' suffix and keys named 'html' are marked as HTML safe. When you use them in views the HTML will not be escaped.</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# config/locales/en.yml
en:
welcome: <b>welcome!</b>
hello_html: <b>hello!</b>
title:
html: <b>title!</b>
</pre>
</div>
<div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; html-script: true; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
# app/views/home/index.html.erb
<div><%= t('welcome') %></div>
<div><%= raw t('welcome') %></div>
<div><%= t('hello_html') %></div>
<div><%= t('title.html') %></div>
</pre>
</div>
<p>Interpolation escapes as needed though. For example, given:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
en:
welcome_html: "<b>Welcome %{username}!</b>"
</pre>
</div>
<p>you can safely pass the username as set by the user:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; html-script: true; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
<%# This is safe, it is going to be escaped if needed. %>
<%= t('welcome_html', username: @current_user.username) %>
</pre>
</div>
<p>Safe strings on the other hand are interpolated verbatim.</p><div class="note"><p>Automatic conversion to HTML safe translate text is only available from the <code>translate</code> view helper method.</p></div><p><img src="images/i18n/demo_html_safe.png" alt="i18n demo html safe"></p><h4 id="translations-for-active-record-models"><a class="anchorlink" href="#translations-for-active-record-models">4.5 Translations for Active Record Models</a></h4><p>You can use the methods <code>Model.model_name.human</code> and <code>Model.human_attribute_name(attribute)</code> to transparently look up translations for your model and attribute names.</p><p>For example when you add the following translations:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
en:
activerecord:
models:
user: Customer
attributes:
user:
login: "Handle"
# will translate User attribute "login" as "Handle"
</pre>
</div>
<p>Then <code>User.model_name.human</code> will return "Customer" and <code>User.human_attribute_name("login")</code> will return "Handle".</p><p>You can also set a plural form for model names, adding as following:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
en:
activerecord:
models:
user:
one: Customer
other: Customers
</pre>
</div>
<p>Then <code>User.model_name.human(count: 2)</code> will return "Customers". With <code>count: 1</code> or without params will return "Customer".</p><p>In the event you need to access nested attributes within a given model, you should nest these under <code>model/attribute</code> at the model level of your translation file:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: plain; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
en:
activerecord:
attributes:
user/role:
admin: "Admin"
contributor: "Contributor"
</pre>
</div>
<p>Then <code>User.human_attribute_name("role.admin")</code> will return "Admin".</p><div class="note"><p>If you are using a class which includes <code>ActiveModel</code> and does not inherit from <code>ActiveRecord::Base</code>, replace <code>activerecord</code> with <code>activemodel</code> in the above key paths.</p></div><h5 id="error-message-scopes"><a class="anchorlink" href="#error-message-scopes">4.5.1 Error Message Scopes</a></h5><p>Active Record validation error messages can also be translated easily. Active Record gives you a couple of namespaces where you can place your message translations in order to provide different messages and translation for certain models, attributes, and/or validations. It also transparently takes single table inheritance into account.</p><p>This gives you quite powerful means to flexibly adjust your messages to your application's needs.</p><p>Consider a User model with a validation for the name attribute like this:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
class User < ApplicationRecord
validates :name, presence: true
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>The key for the error message in this case is <code>:blank</code>. Active Record will look up this key in the namespaces:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
activerecord.errors.models.[model_name].attributes.[attribute_name]
activerecord.errors.models.[model_name]
activerecord.errors.messages
errors.attributes.[attribute_name]
errors.messages
</pre>
</div>
<p>Thus, in our example it will try the following keys in this order and return the first result:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
activerecord.errors.models.user.attributes.name.blank
activerecord.errors.models.user.blank
activerecord.errors.messages.blank
errors.attributes.name.blank
errors.messages.blank
</pre>
</div>
<p>When your models are additionally using inheritance then the messages are looked up in the inheritance chain.</p><p>For example, you might have an Admin model inheriting from User:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
class Admin < User
validates :name, presence: true
end
</pre>
</div>
<p>Then Active Record will look for messages in this order:</p><div class="code_container">
<pre class="brush: ruby; gutter: false; toolbar: false">
activerecord.errors.models.admin.attributes.name.blank
activerecord.errors.models.admin.blank
activerecord.errors.models.user.attributes.name.blank
activerecord.errors.models.user.blank
activerecord.errors.messages.blank
errors.attributes.name.blank
errors.messages.blank
</pre>
</div>
<p>This way you can provide special translations for various error messages at different points in your models inheritance chain and in the attributes, models, or default scopes.</p><h5 id="error-message-interpolation"><a class="anchorlink" href="#error-message-interpolation">4.5.2 Error Message Interpolation</a></h5><p>The translated model name, translated attribute name, and value are always available for interpolation as <code>model</code>, <code>attribute</code> and <code>value</code> respectively.</p><p>So, for example, instead of the default error message <code>"cannot be blank"</code> you could use the attribute name like this : <code>"Please fill in your %{attribute}"</code>.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<code>count</code>, where available, can be used for pluralization if present:</li>
</ul>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>validation</th>
<th>with option</th>
<th>message</th>
<th>interpolation</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>confirmation</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>:confirmation</td>
<td>attribute</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>acceptance</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>:accepted</td>
<td>-</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>presence</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>:blank</td>
<td>-</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>absence</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>:present</td>
<td>-</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>length</td>
<td>:within, :in</td>
<td>:too_short</td>
<td>count</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>length</td>
<td>:within, :in</td>
<td>:too_long</td>
<td>count</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>length</td>
<td>:is</td>
<td>:wrong_length</td>
<td>count</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>length</td>
<td>:minimum</td>
<td>:too_short</td>
<td>count</td>
</tr>
<tr>