===================================================== How to Use oslo.i18n in Your Application or Library ===================================================== Installing ========== At the command line:: $ pip install oslo.i18n .. _integration-module: Creating an Integration Module ============================== To use oslo.i18n in a project (e.g. myapp), you will need to create a small integration module to hold an instance of :class:`~oslo_i18n.TranslatorFactory` and references to the marker functions the factory creates. .. note:: Libraries probably do not want to expose the new integration module as part of their public API, so rather than naming it ``myapp.i18n`` it should be called ``myapp._i18n`` to indicate that it is a private implementation detail, and not meant to be used outside of the library's own code. .. note:: Starting with the Pike series, OpenStack no longer supports log translation. It is not necessary to add translation instructions to new code, and the instructions can be removed from old code. Refer to the email thread `understanding log domain change `_ on the openstack-dev mailing list for more details. .. code-block:: python # myapp/_i18n.py import oslo_i18n DOMAIN = "myapp" _translators = oslo_i18n.TranslatorFactory(domain=DOMAIN) # The primary translation function using the well-known name "_" _ = _translators.primary # The contextual translation function using the name "_C" # requires oslo.i18n >=2.1.0 _C = _translators.contextual_form # The plural translation function using the name "_P" # requires oslo.i18n >=2.1.0 _P = _translators.plural_form # Translators for log levels. # # NOTE(dhellmann): This is not needed for new projects as of the # Pike series. # # The abbreviated names are meant to reflect the usual use of a short # name like '_'. The "L" is for "log" and the other letter comes from # the level. _LI = _translators.log_info _LW = _translators.log_warning _LE = _translators.log_error _LC = _translators.log_critical def get_available_languages(): return oslo_i18n.get_available_languages(DOMAIN) Then, in the rest of your code, use the appropriate marker function for each message: .. code-block:: python from myapp._i18n import _, _LW, _LE # ... variable = "openstack" LOG.warning(_LW('warning message: %s'), variable) # ... try: # ... except AnException1: # Log only LOG.exception(_LE('exception message')) except AnException2: # Raise only raise RuntimeError(_('exception message')) else: # Log and Raise msg = _('Unexpected error message') LOG.exception(msg) raise RuntimeError(msg) .. note:: The import of multiple modules from _i18n on a single line is a valid exception to `OpenStack Style Guidelines `_ for import statements. It is important to use the marker functions (e.g. _LI), rather than the longer form of the name, because the tool that scans the source code for translatable strings looks for the marker function names. .. warning:: The old method of installing a version of ``_()`` in the builtins namespace is deprecated. Modifying the global namespace affects libraries as well as the application, so it may interfere with proper message catalog lookups. Calls to :func:`gettextutils.install` should be replaced with the application or library integration module described here. Handling hacking Objections to Imports ====================================== The `OpenStack Style Guidelines `_ prefer importing modules and accessing names from those modules after import, rather than importing the names directly. For example: :: # WRONG from foo import bar bar() # RIGHT import foo foo.bar() The linting tool hacking_ will typically complain about importing names from within modules. It is acceptable to bypass this for the translation marker functions, because they must have specific names and their use pattern is dictated by the message catalog extraction tools rather than our style guidelines. To bypass the hacking check for imports from this integration module, add an import exception to ``tox.ini``. For example:: # tox.ini [hacking] import_exceptions = myapp._i18n .. _hacking: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/hacking .. _lazy-translation: Lazy Translation ================ Lazy translation delays converting a message string to the translated form as long as possible, including possibly never if the message is not logged or delivered to the user in some other way. It also supports logging translated messages in multiple languages, by configuring separate log handlers. Lazy translation is implemented by returning a special object from the translation function, instead of a unicode string. That special message object supports some, but not all, string manipulation APIs. For example, concatenation with addition is not supported, but interpolation of variables is supported. Depending on how translated strings are used in an application, these restrictions may mean that lazy translation cannot be used, and so it is not enabled by default. To enable lazy translation, call :func:`enable_lazy`. :: import oslo_i18n oslo_i18n.enable_lazy() Translating Messages ==================== Use :func:`~oslo_i18n.translate` to translate strings to a specific locale. :func:`translate` handles delayed translation and strings that have already been translated immediately. It should be used at the point where the locale to be used is known, which is often just prior to the message being returned or a log message being emitted. :: import oslo_i18n trans_msg = oslo_i18n.translate(msg, my_locale) If a locale is not specified the default locale is used. Available Languages =================== Only the languages that have translations provided are available for translation. To determine which languages are available the :func:`~oslo_i18n.get_available_languages` is provided. The integration module provides a domain defined specific function. .. code-block:: python import myapp._i18n languages = myapp._i18n.get_available_languages() .. seealso:: * :doc:`guidelines` Displaying translated messages ============================== Several preparations are required to display translated messages in your running application. Preferred language You need to specify your preferred language through an environment variable. The preferred language can be specified by ``LANGUAGE``, ``LC_ALL``, ``LC_MESSAGES``, or ``LANGUAGE`` (A former one has a priority). ``oslo_i18n.translate()`` can be used to translate a string to override the preferred language. .. note:: You need to use ``enable_lazy()`` to override the preferred language by using ``oslo_i18n.translate()``. Locale directory Python ``gettext`` looks for binary ``mo`` files for the given domain using the path ``//LC_MESSAGES/.mo``. The default locale directory varies on distributions, and it is ``/usr/share/locale`` in most cases. If you store message catalogs in a different location, you need to specify the location via an environment variable named ``_LOCALEDIR`` where ```` is an upper-case domain name with replacing ``_`` and ``.`` with ``-``. For example, ``NEUTRON_LOCALEDIR`` for a domain ``neutron`` and ``OSLO_I18N_LOCALEDIR`` for a domain ``oslo_i18n``. .. note:: When you specify locale directories via ``_LOCALEDIR`` environment variables, you need to specify an environment variable per domain. More concretely, if your application using a domain ``myapp` uses oslo.policy, you need to specify both ``MYAPP_LOCALEDIR`` and ``OSLO_POLICY_LOCALEDIR`` to ensure that translation messages from both your application and oslo.policy are displayed.