twitter-cldr-rb 
TwitterCldr uses Unicode's Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) to format certain types of text into their localized equivalents. Currently supported types of text include dates, times, currencies, decimals, percentages, and symbols.
Installation
gem install twitter_cldr
Usage
require 'twitter_cldr'
Basics
Get a list of all currently supported locales (these are all supported on twitter.com):
TwitterCldr.supported_locales # [:ar, :da, :de, :en, :es, ... ]
Determine if a locale is supported by TwitterCLDR:
TwitterCldr.supported_locale?(:es) # true
TwitterCldr.supported_locale?(:xx) # false
TwitterCldr patches core Ruby objects like Fixnum and Date to make localization as straightforward as possible.
Numbers
Fixnum, Bignum, and Float objects are supported. Here are some examples:
# default formatting with to_s
1337.localize(:es).to_s # 1.337
# currencies, default USD
1337.localize(:es).to_currency.to_s # 1.337,00 $
1337.localize(:es).to_currency.to_s(:currency => "EUR") # 1.337,00 €
1337.localize(:es).to_currency.to_s(:currency => "Peru") # 1.337,00 S/.
# percentages
1337.localize(:es).to_percent.to_s # 1.337%
1337.localize(:es).to_percent.to_s(:precision => 2) # 1.337,00%
# decimals
1337.localize(:es).to_decimal.to_s(:precision => 3) # 1.337,000
Note: The :precision option can be used with all these number formatters.
Behind the scenes, these convenience methods are creating instances of LocalizedNumber. You can do the same thing if you're feeling adventurous:
num = TwitterCldr::LocalizedNumber.new(1337, :es)
num.to_currency.to_s # ...etc
More on Currencies
If you're looking for a list of supported countries and currencies, use the TwitterCldr::Shared::Currencies class:
# all supported countries
TwitterCldr::Shared::Currencies.countries # ["Lithuania", "Philippines", ... ]
# all supported currency codes
TwitterCldr::Shared::Currencies.currency_codes # ["LTL", "PHP" ... ]
# data for a specific country
TwitterCldr::Shared::Currencies.for_country("Canada") # { :currency => "Dollar", :symbol => "$", :code => "CAD" }
# data for a specific currency code
TwitterCldr::Shared::Currencies.for_code("CAD") # { :currency => "Dollar", :symbol => "$", :country => "Canada"}
Dates and Times
Date, Time, and DateTime objects are supported:
DateTime.now.localize(:es).to_full_s # "lunes, 12 de diciembre de 2011 21:44:57 UTC -0800"
DateTime.now.localize(:es).to_long_s # "12 de diciembre de 2011 21:44:57 -08:00"
DateTime.now.localize(:es).to_medium_s # "12/12/2011 21:44:57"
DateTime.now.localize(:es).to_short_s # "12/12/11 21:44"
Date.today.localize(:es).to_full_s # "lunes 12 de diciembre de 2011"
Date.today.localize(:es).to_long_s # "12 de diciembre de 2011"
Date.today.localize(:es).to_medium_s # "12/12/2011"
Date.today.localize(:es).to_short_s # "12/12/11"
Time.now.localize(:es).to_full_s # "21:44:57 UTC -0800"
Time.now.localize(:es).to_long_s # "21:44:57 UTC"
Time.now.localize(:es).to_medium_s # "21:44:57"
Time.now.localize(:es).to_short_s # "21:44"
The CLDR data set only includes 4 specific date formats, full, long, medium, and short, so you'll have to choose amongst them for the one that best fits your needs. Yes, it's limiting, but the 4 formats get the job done most of the time :)
Behind the scenes, these convenience methods are creating instances of LocalizedDate, LocalizedTime, and LocalizedDateTime. You can do the same thing if you're feeling adventurous:
dt = TwitterCldr::LocalizedDateTime.new(DateTime.now, :es)
dt.to_short_s # ...etc
Relative Dates and Times
In addition to formatting full dates and times, TwitterCLDR supports relative time spans via several convenience methods and the LocalizedTimespan class. TwitterCLDR tries to guess the best time unit (eg. days, hours, minutes, etc) based on the length of the time span. Unless otherwise specified, TwitterCLDR will use the current date and time as the reference point for the calculation.
(DateTime.now - 1).localize.ago.to_s # 1 day ago
(DateTime.now - 0.5).localize.ago.to_s # 12 hours ago (i.e. half a day)
(DateTime.now + 1).localize.until.to_s # In 1 day
(DateTime.now + 0.5).localize.until.to_s # In 12 hours
Specify other locales:
(DateTime.now - 1).localize(:de).ago.to_s # Vor 1 Tag
(DateTime.now + 1).localize(:de).until.to_s # In 1 Tag
Force TwitterCLDR to use a specific time unit by including the :unit option:
(DateTime.now - 1).localize(:de).ago.to_s(:unit => :hour) # Vor 24 Stunden
(DateTime.now + 1).localize(:de).until.to_s(:unit => :hour) # In 24 Stunden
Specify a different reference point for the time span calculation:
# 86400 = 1 day in seconds, 259200 = 3 days in seconds
(Time.now + 86400).localize(:de).ago(:base_time => (Time.now + 259200)).to_s(:unit => :hour) # Vor 48 Stunden
Behind the scenes, these convenience methods are creating instances of LocalizedTimespan, whose constructor accepts a number of seconds as the first argument. You can do the same thing if you're feeling adventurous:
ts = TwitterCldr::LocalizedTimespan.new(86400, :locale => :de)
ts.to_s # In 1 Tag
ts.to_s(:unit => :hour) # In 24 Stunden
ts = TwitterCldr::LocalizedTimespan.new(-86400, :locale => :de)
ts.to_s # Vor 1 Tag
ts.to_s(:unit => :hour) # Vor 24 Stunden
Plural Rules
Some languages, like English, have "countable" nouns. You probably know this concept better as "plural" and "singular", i.e. the difference between "strawberry" and "strawberries". Other languages, like Russian, have three plural forms: one (numbers ending in 1), few (numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4), and many (everything else). Still other languages like Japanese don't use countable nouns at all.
TwitterCLDR makes it easy to find the plural rules for any numeric value:
1.localize(:ru).plural_rule # :one
2.localize(:ru).plural_rule # :few
5.localize(:ru).plural_rule # :many
Behind the scenes, these convenience methods use the TwitterCldr::Formatters::Plurals::Rules class. You can do the same thing (and a bit more) if you're feeling adventurous:
# get all rules for the default locale
TwitterCldr::Formatters::Plurals::Rules.all # [:one, ... ]
# get all rules for a specific locale
TwitterCldr::Formatters::Plurals::Rules.all_for(:es) # [:one, :other]
TwitterCldr::Formatters::Plurals::Rules.all_for(:ru) # [:one, :few, :many, :other]
# get the rule for a number in a specific locale
TwitterCldr::Formatters::Plurals::Rules.rule_for(1, :ru) # :one
TwitterCldr::Formatters::Plurals::Rules.rule_for(2, :ru) # :few
Plurals
In addition to providing access to plural rules, TwitterCLDR allows you to embed plurals directly in your source code:
replacements = { :horse_count => 3,
:horses => { :one => "is 1 horse",
:other => "are %{horse_count} horses" } }
# "there are 3 horses in the barn"
"there %{horse_count:horses} in the barn".localize % replacements
Because providing a pluralization hash with the correct plural rules can be difficult, you can also embed plurals as a JSON hash into your string:
str = 'there %<{ "horse_count": { "one": "is one horse", "other": "are %{horse_count} horses" } }> in the barn'
# "there are 3 horses in the barn"
str.localize % { :horse_count => 3 }
NOTE: If you're using TwitterCLDR with Rails 3, you may see an error if you try to use the % function on a localized string in your views. Strings in views in Rails 3 are instances of SafeBuffer, which patches the gsub method that the TwitterCLDR plural formatter relies on. To fix this issue, simply call to_str on any SafeBuffer before calling localize. More info here. An example:
# throws an error in Rails 3 views:
'%<{"count": {"one": "only one", "other": "tons more!"}}'.localize % { :count => 2 }
# works just fine:
'%<{"count": {"one": "only one", "other": "tons more!"}}'.to_str.localize % { :count => 2 }
The LocalizedString class supports all forms of interpolation and combines support from both Ruby 1.8 and 1.9:
# Ruby 1.8
"five euros plus %.3f in tax" % (13.25 * 0.087)
# Ruby 1.9
"five euros plus %.3f in tax" % (13.25 * 0.087)
"there are %{count} horses in the barn" % { :count => "5" }
# with TwitterCLDR
"five euros plus %.3f in tax".localize % (13.25 * 0.087)
"there are %{count} horses in the barn".localize % { :count => "5" }
When you pass a Hash as an argument and specify placeholders with %<foo>d, TwitterCLDR will interpret the hash values as named arguments and format the string according to the instructions appended to the closing >. In this way, TwitterCLDR supports both Ruby 1.8 and 1.9 interpolation syntax in the same string:
"five euros plus %<percent>.3f in %{noun}".localize % { :percent => 13.25 * 0.087, :noun => "tax" }
World Languages
You can use the localize convenience method on language code symbols to get their equivalents in another language:
:es.localize(:es).as_language_code # "español"
:ru.localize(:es).as_language_code # "ruso"
Behind the scenes, these convenience methods are creating instances of LocalizedSymbol. You can do the same thing if you're feeling adventurous:
ls = LocalizedSymbol.new(:ru, :es)
ls.as_language_code # "ruso"
In addition to translating language codes, TwitterCLDR provides access to the full set of supported languages via the TwitterCldr::Shared::Languages class:
# get all languages for the default locale
TwitterCldr::Shared::Languages.all # { ... :"zh-Hant" => "Traditional Chinese", :vi => "Vietnamese" ... }
# get all languages for a specific locale
TwitterCldr::Shared::Languages.all_for(:es) # { ... :"zh-Hant" => "chino tradicional", :vi => "vietnamita" ... }
# get a language by its code for the default locale
TwitterCldr::Shared::Languages.from_code(:'zh-Hant') # "Traditional Chinese"
# get a language from its code for a specific locale
TwitterCldr::Shared::Languages.from_code_for_locale(:'zh-Hant', :es) # "chino tradicional"
# translate a language from one locale to another
# signature: translate_language(lang, source_locale, destination_locale)
TwitterCldr::Shared::Languages.translate_language("chino tradicional", :es, :en) # "Traditional Chinese"
TwitterCldr::Shared::Languages.translate_language("Traditional Chinese", :en, :es) # "chino tradicional"
Unicode Data
TwitterCLDR provides ways to retrieve individual code points as well as normalize and decompose Unicode text.
Retrieve data for code points:
code_point = TwitterCldr::Shared::CodePoint.for_hex("1F3E9")
code_point.name # "LOVE HOTEL"
code_point.bidi_mirrored # "N"
code_point.category # "So"
code_point.combining_class # "0"
Convert characters to code points:
TwitterCldr::Utils::CodePoints.from_string("¿") # ["00BF"]
Convert code points to characters:
TwitterCldr::Utils::CodePoints.to_string(["00BF"]) # "¿"
Normalize/decompose a Unicode string (NFD, NFKD, NFC, and NFKC implementations available). Note that the normalized string will almost always look the same as the original string because most character display systems automatically combine decomposed characters.
TwitterCldr::Normalization::NFD.normalize("français") # "français"
Normalization is easier to see in hex:
# ["0065", "0073", "0070", "0061", "00F1", "006F", "006C"]
TwitterCldr::Utils::CodePoints.from_string("español")
# ["0065", "0073", "0070", "0061", "006E", "0303", "006F", "006C"]
TwitterCldr::Utils::CodePoints.from_string(TwitterCldr::Normalization::NFD.normalize("español"))
Notice in the example above that the letter "ñ" was transformed from 00F1 to 006E 0303, which represent the "n" and the "˜" respectively.
A few convenience methods also exist for String that make it easy to normalize and get code points for strings:
# ["0065", "0073", "0070", "0061", "00F1", "006F", "006C"]
"español".localize.code_points
# ["0065", "0073", "0070", "0061", "006E", "0303", "006F", "006C"]
"español".localize.normalize.code_points
Specify a specific normalization algorithm via the :using option. NFD, NFKD, NFC, and NFKC algorithms are all supported (default is NFD):
# ["0065", "0073", "0070", "0061", "006E", "0303", "006F", "006C"]
"español".localize.normalize(:using => :NFKD).code_points
Sorting (Collation)
TwitterCLDR contains an implementation of the Unicode Collation Algorithm (UCA) that provides language-sensitive text sorting capabilities. Conveniently, all you have to do is use the sort method in combination with the familiar localize method. Notice the difference between the default Ruby sort, which simply compares bytes, and the proper language-aware sort from TwitterCLDR in this German example:
["Art", "Wasa", "Älg", "Ved"].sort # ["Art", "Ved", "Wasa", "Älg"]
["Art", "Wasa", "Älg", "Ved"].localize(:de).sort.to_a # ["Älg", "Art", "Ved", "Wasa"]
Behind the scenes, these convenience methods are creating instances of LocalizedArray, then using the TwitterCldr::Collation::Collator class to sort the elements:
collator = TwitterCldr::Collation::Collator.new(:de)
collator.sort(["Art", "Wasa", "Älg", "Ved"]) # ["Älg", "Art", "Ved", "Wasa"]
collator.sort!(["Art", "Wasa", "Älg", "Ved"]) # ["Älg", "Art", "Ved", "Wasa"]
The TwitterCldr::Collation::Collator class also provides methods to compare two strings, get sort keys, and calculate collation elements for individual strings:
collator = TwitterCldr::Collation::Collator.new(:de)
collator.compare("Art", "Älg") # 1
collator.compare("Älg", "Art") # -1
collator.compare("Art", "Art") # 0
collator.get_collation_elements("Älg") # [[39, 5, 143], [0, 157, 5], [61, 5, 5], [51, 5, 5]]
collator.get_sort_key("Älg") # [39, 61, 51, 1, 134, 157, 6, 1, 143, 7]
Note: The collation algorithm in TwitterCLDR isn't quite complete. Here's what we still have to do:
- Backwards accent sorting for French.
- Uppercase-first sorting for languages like Danish.
Note: The TwitterCLDR collator does not currently pass all the collation tests provided by Unicode, but for some strange reasons. See the summary of these discrepancies if you're curious.
About Twitter-specific Locales
Twitter tries to always use BCP-47 language codes. Data from the CLDR doesn't always match those codes however, so TwitterCLDR provides a convert_locale method to convert between the two. All functionality throughout the entire gem defers to convert_locale before retrieving CLDR data. convert_locale supports Twitter-supported BCP-47 language codes as well as CLDR locale codes, so you don't have to guess which one to use. Here are a few examples:
TwitterCldr.convert_locale(:'zh-cn') # :zh
TwitterCldr.convert_locale(:zh) # :zh
TwitterCldr.convert_locale(:'zh-tw') # :'zh-Hant'
TwitterCldr.convert_locale(:'zh-Hant') # :'zh-Hant'
TwitterCldr.convert_locale(:msa) # :ms
TwitterCldr.convert_locale(:ms) # :ms
There are a few functions in TwitterCLDR that don't require a locale code, and instead use the default locale by calling TwitterCldr.get_locale. The get_locale function defers to FastGettext.locale when the FastGettext library is available, and falls back on :en (English) when it's not. (Twitter uses the FastGettext gem to retrieve translations efficiently in Ruby).
TwitterCldr.get_locale # will return :en
require 'fast_gettext'
FastGettext.locale = "ru"
TwitterCldr.get_locale # will return :ru
Requirements
No external requirements.
Running Tests
bundle exec rake will run our basic test suite suitable for development. To run the full test suite, use bundle exec rake spec:full. The full test suite takes considerably longer to run because it runs against the complete normalization and collation test files from the Unicode Consortium. The basic test suite only runs normalization and collation tests against a small subset of the complete test file.
Tests are written in RSpec using RR as the mocking framework.
JavaScript Support
TwitterCLDR currently supports localization of dates and times in JavaScript. More awesome features are coming soon. See http://github.com/twitter/twitter-cldr-js for details.
Generating the JavaScript
You can automatically generate the JavaScript version of TwitterCLDR using this Rubygem. Here's the one-liner:
bundle exec rake js:build OUTPUT_DIR=/path/to/desired/output/location
If you'd like to customize the generated output further, you'll need to require the TwitterCldr::Js namespace. You can choose the locales to export and whether to export a minified version alongside the full version for each locale.
require 'twitter_cldr'
TwitterCldr.require_js # require JavaScript environment
TwitterCldr::Js.output_dir = "/path/to/output/location"
TwitterCldr::Js.make(:locales => [:de, :sv, :ja, :ar], # generate files for German, Swedish,
:minify => true) # Japanese, and Arabic
TwitterCldr::Js.install # copy files to output directory
Running Tests (JS)
A JavaScript test suite comes with twitter-cldr-rb. You'll need to install the Qt libs to be able to run the suite, as it uses jasmine and jasmine-headless-webkit.
- Install qt (eg.
brew install qt,sudo apt-get install qt4, etc) - Run
bundle - Run
bundle exec rake js:test
The tests are located in js/spec and look similar to RSpec tests.
Authors
- Cameron C. Dutro: http://github.com/camertron
- Kirill Lashuk: http://github.com/kl-7
- Portions adapted from the ruby-cldr gem by Sven Fuchs: http://github.com/svenfuchs/ruby-cldr
Links
- ruby-cldr gem: http://github.com/svenfuchs/ruby-cldr
- fast_gettext gem: https://github.com/grosser/fast_gettext
- CLDR homepage: http://cldr.unicode.org/
License
Copyright 2012 Twitter, Inc.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0