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1 ====================
2 Internationalization
3 ====================
4
5 Django has full support for internationalization of text in code and templates.
6 Here's how it works.
7
8 Overview
9 ========
10
11 The goal of internationalization is to allow a single Web application to offer
12 its content and functionality in multiple languages.
13
14 You, the Django developer, can accomplish this goal by adding a minimal amount
15 of hooks to your Python code and templates. These hooks are called
16 **translation strings**. They tell Django: "This text should be translated into
17 the end user's language, if a translation for this text is available in that
18 language."
19
20 Django takes care of using these hooks to translate Web apps, on the fly,
21 according to users' language preferences.
22
23 Essentially, Django does two things:
24
25     * It lets developers and template authors specify which parts of their apps
26       should be translatable.
27     * It uses these hooks to translate Web apps for particular users according
28       to their language preferences.
29
30 How to internationalize your app: in three steps
31 ------------------------------------------------
32
33     1. Embed translation strings in your Python code and templates.
34     2. Get translations for those strings, in whichever languages you want to
35        support.
36     3. Activate the locale middleware in your Django settings.
37
38 .. admonition:: Behind the scenes
39
40     Django's translation machinery uses the standard ``gettext`` module that
41     comes with Python.
42
43 If you don't need internationalization
44 ======================================
45
46 Django's internationalization hooks are on by default, and that means there's a
47 bit of i18n-related overhead in certain places of the framework. If you don't
48 use internationalization, you should take the two seconds to set
49 ``USE_I18N = False`` in your settings file. If ``USE_I18N`` is set to
50 ``False``, then Django will make some optimizations so as not to load the
51 internationalization machinery.
52
53 See the `documentation for USE_I18N`_.
54
55 .. _documentation for USE_I18N: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/settings/#use-i18n
56
57 How to specify translation strings
58 ==================================
59
60 Translation strings specify "This text should be translated." These strings can
61 appear in your Python code and templates. It's your responsibility to mark
62 translatable strings; the system can only translate strings it knows about.
63
64 In Python code
65 --------------
66
67 Standard translation
68 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
69
70 Specify a translation string by using the function ``_()``. (Yes, the name of
71 the function is the "underscore" character.) This function is available
72 globally in any Python module; you don't have to import it.
73
74 In this example, the text ``"Welcome to my site."`` is marked as a translation
75 string::
76
77     def my_view(request):
78         output = _("Welcome to my site.")
79         return HttpResponse(output)
80
81 The function ``django.utils.translation.gettext()`` is identical to ``_()``.
82 This example is identical to the previous one::
83
84     from django.utils.translation import gettext
85     def my_view(request):
86         output = gettext("Welcome to my site.")
87         return HttpResponse(output)
88
89 Translation works on computed values. This example is identical to the previous
90 two::
91
92     def my_view(request):
93         words = ['Welcome', 'to', 'my', 'site.']
94         output = _(' '.join(words))
95         return HttpResponse(output)
96
97 Translation works on variables. Again, here's an identical example::
98
99     def my_view(request):
100         sentence = 'Welcome to my site.'
101         output = _(sentence)
102         return HttpResponse(output)
103
104 (The caveat with using variables or computed values, as in the previous two
105 examples, is that Django's translation-string-detecting utility,
106 ``make-messages.py``, won't be able to find these strings. More on
107 ``make-messages`` later.)
108
109 The strings you pass to ``_()`` or ``gettext()`` can take placeholders,
110 specified with Python's standard named-string interpolation syntax. Example::
111
112     def my_view(request, n):
113         output = _('%(name)s is my name.') % {'name': n}
114         return HttpResponse(output)
115
116 This technique lets language-specific translations reorder the placeholder
117 text. For example, an English translation may be ``"Adrian is my name."``,
118 while a Spanish translation may be ``"Me llamo Adrian."`` -- with the
119 placeholder (the name) placed after the translated text instead of before it.
120
121 For this reason, you should use named-string interpolation (e.g., ``%(name)s``)
122 instead of positional interpolation (e.g., ``%s`` or ``%d``). If you used
123 positional interpolation, translations wouldn't be able to reorder placeholder
124 text.
125
126 Marking strings as no-op
127 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
128
129 Use the function ``django.utils.translation.gettext_noop()`` to mark a string
130 as a translation string without translating it. The string is later translated
131 from a variable.
132
133 Use this if you have constant strings that should be stored in the source
134 language because they are exchanged over systems or users -- such as strings in
135 a database -- but should be translated at the last possible point in time, such
136 as when the string is presented to the user.
137
138 Lazy translation
139 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
140
141 Use the function ``django.utils.translation.gettext_lazy()`` to translate
142 strings lazily -- when the value is accessed rather than when the
143 ``gettext_lazy()`` function is called.
144
145 For example, to translate a model's ``help_text``, do the following::
146
147     from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy
148
149     class MyThing(models.Model):
150         name = models.CharField(help_text=gettext_lazy('This is the help text'))
151
152 In this example, ``gettext_lazy()`` stores a lazy reference to the string --
153 not the actual translation. The translation itself will be done when the string
154 is used in a string context, such as template rendering on the Django admin site.
155
156 If you don't like the verbose name ``gettext_lazy``, you can just alias it as
157 ``_`` (underscore), like so::
158
159     from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _
160
161     class MyThing(models.Model):
162         name = models.CharField(help_text=_('This is the help text'))
163
164 Always use lazy translations in `Django models`_. And it's a good idea to add
165 translations for the field names and table names, too. This means writing
166 explicit ``verbose_name`` and ``verbose_name_plural`` options in the ``Meta``
167 class, though::
168
169     from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _
170
171     class MyThing(models.Model):
172         name = models.CharField(_('name'), help_text=_('This is the help text'))
173         class Meta:
174             verbose_name = _('my thing')
175             verbose_name_plural = _('mythings')
176
177 .. _Django models: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/model_api/
178
179 Pluralization
180 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
181
182 Use the function ``django.utils.translation.ngettext()`` to specify pluralized
183 messages. Example::
184
185     from django.utils.translation import ngettext
186     def hello_world(request, count):
187         page = ngettext('there is %(count)d object', 'there are %(count)d objects', count) % {
188             'count': count,
189         }
190         return HttpResponse(page)
191
192 ``ngettext`` takes three arguments: the singular translation string, the plural
193 translation string and the number of objects (which is passed to the
194 translation languages as the ``count`` variable).
195
196 In template code
197 ----------------
198
199 Using translations in `Django templates`_ uses two template tags and a slightly
200 different syntax than in Python code. To give your template access to these
201 tags, put ``{% load i18n %}`` toward the top of your template.
202
203 The ``{% trans %}`` template tag translates a constant string or a variable
204 content::
205
206     <title>{% trans "This is the title." %}</title>
207
208 If you only want to mark a value for translation, but translate it later from a
209 variable, use the ``noop`` option::
210
211     <title>{% trans "value" noop %}</title>
212
213 It's not possible to use template variables in ``{% trans %}`` -- only constant
214 strings, in single or double quotes, are allowed. If your translations require
215 variables (placeholders), use ``{% blocktrans %}``. Example::
216
217     {% blocktrans %}This will have {{ value }} inside.{% endblocktrans %}
218
219 To translate a template expression -- say, using template filters -- you need
220 to bind the expression to a local variable for use within the translation
221 block::
222
223     {% blocktrans with value|filter as myvar %}
224     This will have {{ myvar }} inside.
225     {% endblocktrans %}
226
227 If you need to bind more than one expression inside a ``blocktrans`` tag,
228 separate the pieces with ``and``::
229
230     {% blocktrans with book|title as book_t and author|title as author_t %}
231     This is {{ book_t }} by {{ author_t }}
232     {% endblocktrans %}
233
234 To pluralize, specify both the singular and plural forms with the
235 ``{% plural %}`` tag, which appears within ``{% blocktrans %}`` and
236 ``{% endblocktrans %}``. Example::
237
238     {% blocktrans count list|count as counter %}
239     There is only one {{ name }} object.
240     {% plural %}
241     There are {{ counter }} {{ name }} objects.
242     {% endblocktrans %}
243
244 Internally, all block and inline translations use the appropriate
245 ``gettext`` / ``ngettext`` call.
246
247 Each ``RequestContext`` has access to two translation-specific variables:
248
249     * ``LANGUAGES`` is a list of tuples in which the first element is the
250       language code and the second is the language name (in that language).
251     * ``LANGUAGE_CODE`` is the current user's preferred language, as a string.
252       Example: ``en-us``. (See "How language preference is discovered", below.)
253     * ``LANGUAGE_BIDI`` is the current language's direction. If True, it's a
254       right-to-left language, e.g: Hebrew, Arabic. If False it's a
255       left-to-right language, e.g: English, French, German etc.
256
257
258 If you don't use the ``RequestContext`` extension, you can get those values with
259 three tags::
260
261     {% get_current_language as LANGUAGE_CODE %}
262     {% get_available_languages as LANGUAGES %}
263     {% get_current_language_bidi as LANGUAGE_BIDI %}
264
265 These tags also require a ``{% load i18n %}``.
266
267 Translation hooks are also available within any template block tag that accepts
268 constant strings. In those cases, just use ``_()`` syntax to specify a
269 translation string. Example::
270
271     {% some_special_tag _("Page not found") value|yesno:_("yes,no") %}
272
273 In this case, both the tag and the filter will see the already-translated
274 string, so they don't need to be aware of translations.
275
276 .. _Django templates: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/templates_python/
277
278 How to create language files
279 ============================
280
281 Once you've tagged your strings for later translation, you need to write (or
282 obtain) the language translations themselves. Here's how that works.
283
284 Message files
285 -------------
286
287 The first step is to create a **message file** for a new language. A message
288 file is a plain-text file, representing a single language, that contains all
289 available translation strings and how they should be represented in the given
290 language. Message files have a ``.po`` file extension.
291
292 Django comes with a tool, ``bin/make-messages.py``, that automates the creation
293 and upkeep of these files.
294
295 To create or update a message file, run this command::
296
297     bin/make-messages.py -l de
298
299 ...where ``de`` is the language code for the message file you want to create.
300 The language code, in this case, is in locale format. For example, it's
301 ``pt_BR`` for Brazilian and ``de_AT`` for Austrian German.
302
303 The script should be run from one of three places:
304
305     * The root ``django`` directory (not a Subversion checkout, but the one
306       that is linked-to via ``$PYTHONPATH`` or is located somewhere on that
307       path).
308     * The root directory of your Django project.
309     * The root directory of your Django app.
310
311 The script runs over the entire Django source tree and pulls out all strings
312 marked for translation. It creates (or updates) a message file in the directory
313 ``conf/locale``. In the ``de`` example, the file will be
314 ``conf/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/django.po``.
315
316 If run over your project source tree or your application source tree, it will
317 do the same, but the location of the locale directory is ``locale/LANG/LC_MESSAGES``
318 (note the missing ``conf`` prefix).
319
320 .. admonition:: No gettext?
321
322     If you don't have the ``gettext`` utilities installed, ``make-messages.py``
323     will create empty files. If that's the case, either install the ``gettext``
324     utilities or just copy the English message file
325     (``conf/locale/en/LC_MESSAGES/django.po``) and use it as a starting point;
326     it's just an empty translation file.
327
328 The format of ``.po`` files is straightforward. Each ``.po`` file contains a
329 small bit of metadata, such as the translation maintainer's contact
330 information, but the bulk of the file is a list of **messages** -- simple
331 mappings between translation strings and the actual translated text for the
332 particular language.
333
334 For example, if your Django app contained a translation string for the text
335 ``"Welcome to my site."``, like so::
336
337     _("Welcome to my site.")
338
339 ...then ``make-messages.py`` will have created a ``.po`` file containing the
340 following snippet -- a message::
341
342     #: path/to/python/module.py:23
343     msgid "Welcome to my site."
344     msgstr ""
345
346 A quick explanation:
347
348     * ``msgid`` is the translation string, which appears in the source. Don't
349       change it.
350     * ``msgstr`` is where you put the language-specific translation. It starts
351       out empty, so it's your responsibility to change it. Make sure you keep
352       the quotes around your translation.
353     * As a convenience, each message includes the filename and line number
354       from which the translation string was gleaned.
355
356 Long messages are a special case. There, the first string directly after the
357 ``msgstr`` (or ``msgid``) is an empty string. Then the content itself will be
358 written over the next few lines as one string per line. Those strings are
359 directly concatenated. Don't forget trailing spaces within the strings;
360 otherwise, they'll be tacked together without whitespace!
361
362 .. admonition:: Mind your charset
363
364     When creating a ``.po`` file with your favorite text editor, first edit
365     the charset line (search for ``"CHARSET"``) and set it to the charset
366     you'll be using to edit the content. Generally, utf-8 should work for most
367     languages, but ``gettext`` should handle any charset you throw at it.
368
369 To reexamine all source code and templates for new translation strings and
370 update all message files for **all** languages, run this::
371
372     make-messages.py -a
373
374 Compiling message files
375 -----------------------
376
377 After you create your message file -- and each time you make changes to it --
378 you'll need to compile it into a more efficient form, for use by ``gettext``.
379 Do this with the ``bin/compile-messages.py`` utility.
380
381 This tool runs over all available ``.po`` files and creates ``.mo`` files,
382 which are binary files optimized for use by ``gettext``. In the same directory
383 from which you ran ``make-messages.py``, run ``compile-messages.py`` like
384 this::
385
386    bin/compile-messages.py
387
388 That's it. Your translations are ready for use.
389
390 .. admonition:: A note to translators
391
392     If you've created a translation in a language Django doesn't yet support,
393     please let us know! See `Submitting and maintaining translations`_ for
394     the steps to take.
395
396     .. _Submitting and maintaining translations: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/contributing/
397
398 How Django discovers language preference
399 ========================================
400
401 Once you've prepared your translations -- or, if you just want to use the
402 translations that come with Django -- you'll just need to activate translation
403 for your app.
404
405 Behind the scenes, Django has a very flexible model of deciding which language
406 should be used -- installation-wide, for a particular user, or both.
407
408 To set an installation-wide language preference, set ``LANGUAGE_CODE`` in your
409 `settings file`_. Django uses this language as the default translation -- the
410 final attempt if no other translator finds a translation.
411
412 If all you want to do is run Django with your native language, and a language
413 file is available for your language, all you need to do is set
414 ``LANGUAGE_CODE``.
415
416 If you want to let each individual user specify which language he or she
417 prefers, use ``LocaleMiddleware``. ``LocaleMiddleware`` enables language
418 selection based on data from the request. It customizes content for each user.
419
420 To use ``LocaleMiddleware``, add ``'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware'``
421 to your ``MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES`` setting. Because middleware order matters, you
422 should follow these guidelines:
423
424     * Make sure it's one of the first middlewares installed.
425     * It should come after ``SessionMiddleware``, because ``LocaleMiddleware``
426       makes use of session data.
427     * If you use ``CacheMiddleware``, put ``LocaleMiddleware`` after it.
428
429 For example, your ``MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES`` might look like this::
430
431     MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
432        'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
433        'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware',
434        'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
435     )
436
437 (For more on middleware, see the `middleware documentation`_.)
438
439 ``LocaleMiddleware`` tries to determine the user's language preference by
440 following this algorithm:
441
442     * First, it looks for a ``django_language`` key in the the current user's
443       `session`_.
444     * Failing that, it looks for a cookie called ``django_language``.
445     * Failing that, it looks at the ``Accept-Language`` HTTP header. This
446       header is sent by your browser and tells the server which language(s) you
447       prefer, in order by priority. Django tries each language in the header
448       until it finds one with available translations.
449     * Failing that, it uses the global ``LANGUAGE_CODE`` setting.
450
451 Notes:
452
453     * In each of these places, the language preference is expected to be in the
454       standard language format, as a string. For example, Brazilian is
455       ``pt-br``.
456     * If a base language is available but the sublanguage specified is not,
457       Django uses the base language. For example, if a user specifies ``de-at``
458       (Austrian German) but Django only has ``de`` available, Django uses
459       ``de``.
460     * Only languages listed in the `LANGUAGES setting`_ can be selected. If
461       you want to restrict the language selection to a subset of provided
462       languages (because your application doesn't provide all those languages),
463       set ``LANGUAGES`` to a list of languages. For example::
464
465           LANGUAGES = (
466             ('de', _('German')),
467             ('en', _('English')),
468           )
469
470       This example restricts languages that are available for automatic
471       selection to German and English (and any sublanguage, like de-ch or
472       en-us).
473
474       .. _LANGUAGES setting: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/settings/#languages
475
476     * If you define a custom ``LANGUAGES`` setting, as explained in the
477       previous bullet, it's OK to mark the languages as translation strings
478       -- but use a "dummy" ``gettext()`` function, not the one in
479       ``django.utils.translation``. You should *never* import
480       ``django.utils.translation`` from within your settings file, because that
481       module in itself depends on the settings, and that would cause a circular
482       import.
483
484       The solution is to use a "dummy" ``gettext()`` function. Here's a sample
485       settings file::
486
487           gettext = lambda s: s
488
489           LANGUAGES = (
490               ('de', gettext('German')),
491               ('en', gettext('English')),
492           )
493
494       With this arrangement, ``make-messages.py`` will still find and mark
495       these strings for translation, but the translation won't happen at
496       runtime -- so you'll have to remember to wrap the languages in the *real*
497       ``gettext()`` in any code that uses ``LANGUAGES`` at runtime.
498
499     * The ``LocaleMiddleware`` can only select languages for which there is a
500       Django-provided base translation. If you want to provide translations
501       for your application that aren't already in the set of translations
502       in Django's source tree, you'll want to provide at least basic
503       translations for that language. For example, Django uses technical
504       message IDs to translate date formats and time formats -- so you will
505       need at least those translations for the system to work correctly.
506
507       A good starting point is to copy the English ``.po`` file and to
508       translate at least the technical messages -- maybe the validator
509       messages, too.
510
511       Technical message IDs are easily recognized; they're all upper case. You
512       don't translate the message ID as with other messages, you provide the
513       correct local variant on the provided English value. For example, with
514       ``DATETIME_FORMAT`` (or ``DATE_FORMAT`` or ``TIME_FORMAT``), this would
515       be the format string that you want to use in your language. The format
516       is identical to the format strings used by the ``now`` template tag.
517
518 Once ``LocaleMiddleware`` determines the user's preference, it makes this
519 preference available as ``request.LANGUAGE_CODE`` for each `request object`_.
520 Feel free to read this value in your view code. Here's a simple example::
521
522     def hello_world(request, count):
523         if request.LANGUAGE_CODE == 'de-at':
524             return HttpResponse("You prefer to read Austrian German.")
525         else:
526             return HttpResponse("You prefer to read another language.")
527
528 Note that, with static (middleware-less) translation, the language is in
529 ``settings.LANGUAGE_CODE``, while with dynamic (middleware) translation, it's
530 in ``request.LANGUAGE_CODE``.
531
532 .. _settings file: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/settings/
533 .. _middleware documentation: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/middleware/
534 .. _session: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/sessions/
535 .. _request object: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/request_response/#httprequest-objects
536
537 The ``set_language`` redirect view
538 ==================================
539
540 As a convenience, Django comes with a view, ``django.views.i18n.set_language``,
541 that sets a user's language preference and redirects back to the previous page.
542
543 Activate this view by adding the following line to your URLconf::
544
545     (r'^i18n/', include('django.conf.urls.i18n')),
546
547 (Note that this example makes the view available at ``/i18n/setlang/``.)
548
549 The view expects to be called via the ``GET`` method, with a ``language``
550 parameter set in the query string. If session support is enabled, the view
551 saves the language choice in the user's session. Otherwise, it saves the
552 language choice in a ``django_language`` cookie.
553
554 After setting the language choice, Django redirects the user, following this
555 algorithm:
556
557     * Django looks for a ``next`` parameter in the query string.
558     * If that doesn't exist, or is empty, Django tries the URL in the
559       ``Referer`` header.
560     * If that's empty -- say, if a user's browser suppresses that header --
561       then the user will be redirected to ``/`` (the site root) as a fallback.
562
563 Here's example HTML template code::
564
565     <form action="/i18n/setlang/" method="get">
566     <input name="next" type="hidden" value="/next/page/" />
567     <select name="language">
568     {% for lang in LANGUAGES %}
569     <option value="{{ lang.0 }}">{{ lang.1 }}</option>
570     {% endfor %}
571     </select>
572     <input type="submit" value="Go" />
573     </form>
574
575 Using translations in your own projects
576 =======================================
577
578 Django looks for translations by following this algorithm:
579
580     * First, it looks for a ``locale`` directory in the application directory
581       of the view that's being called. If it finds a translation for the
582       selected language, the translation will be installed.
583     * Next, it looks for a ``locale`` directory in the project directory. If it
584       finds a translation, the translation will be installed.
585     * Finally, it checks the base translation in ``django/conf/locale``.
586
587 This way, you can write applications that include their own translations, and
588 you can override base translations in your project path. Or, you can just build
589 a big project out of several apps and put all translations into one big project
590 message file. The choice is yours.
591
592 .. note::
593
594     If you're using manually configured settings, as described in the
595     `settings documentation`_, the ``locale`` directory in the project
596     directory will not be examined, since Django loses the ability to work out
597     the location of the project directory. (Django normally uses the location
598     of the settings file to determine this, and a settings file doesn't exist
599     if you're manually configuring your settings.)
600
601 .. _settings documentation: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/settings/#using-settings-without-the-django-settings-module-environment-variable
602
603 All message file repositories are structured the same way. They are:
604
605     * ``$APPPATH/locale/<language>/LC_MESSAGES/django.(po|mo)``
606     * ``$PROJECTPATH/locale/<language>/LC_MESSAGES/django.(po|mo)``
607     * All paths listed in ``LOCALE_PATHS`` in your settings file are
608       searched in that order for ``<language>/LC_MESSAGES/django.(po|mo)``
609     * ``$PYTHONPATH/django/conf/locale/<language>/LC_MESSAGES/django.(po|mo)``
610
611 To create message files, you use the same ``make-messages.py`` tool as with the
612 Django message files. You only need to be in the right place -- in the directory
613 where either the ``conf/locale`` (in case of the source tree) or the ``locale/``
614 (in case of app messages or project messages) directory are located. And you
615 use the same ``compile-messages.py`` to produce the binary ``django.mo`` files that
616 are used by ``gettext``.
617
618 Application message files are a bit complicated to discover -- they need the
619 ``LocaleMiddleware``. If you don't use the middleware, only the Django message
620 files and project message files will be processed.
621
622 Finally, you should give some thought to the structure of your translation
623 files. If your applications need to be delivered to other users and will
624 be used in other projects, you might want to use app-specific translations.
625 But using app-specific translations and project translations could produce
626 weird problems with ``make-messages``: ``make-messages`` will traverse all
627 directories below the current path and so might put message IDs into the
628 project message file that are already in application message files.
629
630 The easiest way out is to store applications that are not part of the project
631 (and so carry their own translations) outside the project tree. That way,
632 ``make-messages`` on the project level will only translate strings that are
633 connected to your explicit project and not strings that are distributed
634 independently.
635
636 Translations and JavaScript
637 ===========================
638
639 Adding translations to JavaScript poses some problems:
640
641     * JavaScript code doesn't have access to a ``gettext`` implementation.
642
643     * JavaScript code doesn't have access to .po or .mo files; they need to be
644       delivered by the server.
645
646     * The translation catalogs for JavaScript should be kept as small as
647       possible.
648
649 Django provides an integrated solution for these problems: It passes the
650 translations into JavaScript, so you can call ``gettext``, etc., from within
651 JavaScript.
652
653 The ``javascript_catalog`` view
654 -------------------------------
655
656 The main solution to these problems is the ``javascript_catalog`` view, which
657 sends out a JavaScript code library with functions that mimic the ``gettext``
658 interface, plus an array of translation strings. Those translation strings are
659 taken from the application, project or Django core, according to what you
660 specify in either the {{{info_dict}}} or the URL.
661
662 You hook it up like this::
663
664     js_info_dict = {
665         'packages': ('your.app.package',),
666     }
667
668     urlpatterns = patterns('',
669         (r'^jsi18n/$', 'django.views.i18n.javascript_catalog', js_info_dict),
670     )
671
672 Each string in ``packages`` should be in Python dotted-package syntax (the
673 same format as the strings in ``INSTALLED_APPS``) and should refer to a package
674 that contains a ``locale`` directory. If you specify multiple packages, all
675 those catalogs are merged into one catalog. This is useful if you have
676 JavaScript that uses strings from different applications.
677
678 You can make the view dynamic by putting the packages into the URL pattern::
679
680     urlpatterns = patterns('',
681         (r'^jsi18n/(?P<packages>\S+?)/$, 'django.views.i18n.javascript_catalog'),
682     )
683
684 With this, you specify the packages as a list of package names delimited by '+'
685 signs in the URL. This is especially useful if your pages use code from
686 different apps and this changes often and you don't want to pull in one big
687 catalog file. As a security measure, these values can only be either
688 ``django.conf`` or any package from the ``INSTALLED_APPS`` setting.
689
690 Using the JavaScript translation catalog
691 ----------------------------------------
692
693 To use the catalog, just pull in the dynamically generated script like this::
694
695     <script type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/jsi18n/"></script>
696
697 This is how the admin fetches the translation catalog from the server. When the
698 catalog is loaded, your JavaScript code can use the standard ``gettext``
699 interface to access it::
700
701     document.write(gettext('this is to be translated'));
702
703 There even is a ``ngettext`` interface and a string interpolation function::
704
705     d = {
706         count: 10
707     };
708     s = interpolate(ngettext('this is %(count)s object', 'this are %(count)s objects', d.count), d);
709
710 The ``interpolate`` function supports both positional interpolation and named
711 interpolation. So the above could have been written as::
712
713     s = interpolate(ngettext('this is %s object', 'this are %s objects', 11), [11]);
714
715 The interpolation syntax is borrowed from Python. You shouldn't go over the top
716 with string interpolation, though: this is still JavaScript, so the code will
717 have to do repeated regular-expression substitutions. This isn't as fast as
718 string interpolation  in Python, so keep it to those cases where you really
719 need it (for example, in conjunction with ``ngettext`` to produce proper
720 pluralizations).
721
722 Creating JavaScript translation catalogs
723 ----------------------------------------
724
725 You create and update the translation catalogs the same way as the other Django
726 translation catalogs -- with the {{{make-messages.py}}} tool. The only
727 difference is you need to provide a ``-d djangojs`` parameter, like this::
728
729     make-messages.py -d djangojs -l de
730
731 This would create or update the translation catalog for JavaScript for German.
732 After updating translation catalogs, just run ``compile-messages.py`` the same
733 way as you do with normal Django translation catalogs.
734
735 Specialities of Django translation
736 ==================================
737
738 If you know ``gettext``, you might note these specialities in the way Django
739 does translation:
740
741     * The string domain is ``django`` or ``djangojs``. The string domain is used to
742       differentiate between different programs that store their data in a
743       common message-file library (usually ``/usr/share/locale/``). The ``django``
744       domain is used for python and template translation strings and is loaded into
745       the global translation catalogs. The ``djangojs`` domain is only used for
746       JavaScript translation catalogs to make sure that those are as small as
747       possible.
748     * Django only uses ``gettext`` and ``gettext_noop``. That's because Django
749       always uses ``DEFAULT_CHARSET`` strings internally. There isn't much use
750       in using ``ugettext``, because you'll always need to produce utf-8
751       anyway.
752     * Django doesn't use ``xgettext`` alone. It uses Python wrappers around
753       ``xgettext`` and ``msgfmt``. That's mostly for convenience.
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