i18n_column

Introduction

This extension provides the capabilities of storing and retrieving translations from a single database column. The translations are stored as a JSON object i.e. “en”:“Home”,“de”:“Zuhause”.

The current and default locale are retrieved from the Rails Internationalization (I18n) API. Set the current locale on each request with i.e. I18n.locale = :de. If not set the default locale will be taken: I18n.default_locale. I18n.locale is used as the JSON key to store a translation i.e. "en":"Home".

i18n_column is tested with rails version 3.

Installation

Gem

gem install i18n_column

Bundler

gem('i18n_column')

Example

Migration

class CreateNodes < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table(:nodes) do |t|
      t.text(:name)
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table(:nodes)
  end
end

Model

class Node < ActiveRecord::Base
  i18n_column(:name)
end

Controller

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_filter(:set_locale)

  private

  def set_locale
    I18n.locale = params[:locale]
  end
end

Set the default locale in config/application.rb file

config.i18n.default_locale = :de

Console

I18n.locale = :en
node = Node.create!(:name => 'Home') => {"en":"Home"}
node.name => 'Home'
I18n.locale = :de
node.name = 'Zuhause'
node.save! => {"en":"Home","de":"Zuhause"}
node.name => 'Zuhause'

Known issues

• Rails versions greater than 3.0.1: JSON hash instead of translation is displayed in form fields. Workaround:

f.text_field(:fname) instead of f.text_field(:name)

Copyright

Copyright © 2010 Philipp Ullmann. See LICENSE for details.