Sanat

Translates a “master” string resource translation file that looks something like this:

=== Login flow ===

  LoginView.Title
    en = Log in
    fi = Kirjaudu sisään
    jp = ログイン

…into string resource files appropriate for use on several different software platforms:

                             all-translations.sanat
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                       |
                                    (sanat)
           ____________________________|_____________________________ ...
          |                            |                         |
       Android                     iOS / OS X                 Windows
__________|__________    ______________|_____________    ________|________
values-en/strings.xml    en.lproj/Localizable.strings    en/Resources.resw
values-fi/strings.xml    fi.lproj/Localizable.strings    fi/Resources.resw
values-jp/strings.xml    jp.lproj/Localizable.strings    jp/Resources.resw

Run the main program with the --help argument to see “usage” information.

Translation File Syntax

Section titles

(Sections are optional — translation files don't have to contain sections.)

Section titles begin with least three = symbols at the beginning of a line:

=== Login view

Both leading and trailing = symbols are okay:

======== Login view ========

Translations

Translation keys (e.g. LoginView.Title below) are indented by two spaces. Translation values are indented by four spaces:

  LoginView.Title
    en = Log in
    fi = Kirjaudu sisään

Each translation value line must begin with a BCP 47 language identifier, followed by a = sign, followed by the actual text content of the translation (for the specified language.)

The translation text content may be double quoted:

    fi = "Kirjaudu sisään "

Platform limits

Translations can be limited to certain platforms like so:

  LoginView.Title
    en = Log in
    fi = Kirjaudu sisään
    platforms = apple, android

Translations that specify platforms will only be rendered in the translation output files for those platforms (and not for others.)

The currently supported values are:

• apple (Apple platforms; iOS and OS X)
• android
• windows (.NET)
• java (XML Properties files with MessageFormat syntax)

Comments

Translations can be given comments like so:

  LoginView.Title
    en = Log in
    fi = Kirjaudu sisään
    comment = The title to the login view

These kinds of comments will be included in the generated platform-specific string resource files whenever possible.

Lines that start with # are comments that are not included in the generated resource files:

  # This comment is _not_ included in the output
  LoginView.Title
    en = Log in
    fi = Kirjaudu sisään
    comment = This comment is included in the output

Format specifiers

Translation text can contain format specifiers like this:

Hello {s}, today it’s {f.2} degrees celsius.

Format specifiers are delineated by the {} signs, and they can contain the following:

{ 3: f .2 }
  ^^ ^ ^^____ (optional) decimal count
   |  \___ data type
    \___ (optional) order index

The data type can be one of the following:

• @: Object
• s: String
• d: Integer
• f: Floating-point number

(These are mapped to the closest corresponding platform-specific format specifiers.)

The decimal count specifies the number of decimals to show for floating-point numbers, and is only relevant if the data type is f.

The order index specifies the 1-based index of the “printf argument” to apply for this format specifier. (This is necessary for cases where the word order for the same sentence differs between languages.)

Preprocessors

Translations can be preprocessed by specifying one of the following preprocessors:

markdown

Translates the text in each translation from Markdown to HTML.

smartypants

Processes the text in each translation using Smartypants.

Design Principles

This program is written in Go. This helps satisfy these requirements:

• Speed: This program needs to be fast if it’s going to be included in build processes — we don’t want it to make builds noticeably slower.
• Portability: This program needs to run on multiple operating systems (at least OS X, Linux, and Windows) so that it can be used on any developer workstation or build server.
• Single-file executable binary: This program needs to be a single-file executable binary with no external dependencies so that it’d be straightforward and simple to install, or commit into source control (so that it wouldn’t need to be installed as a separate step.)

License

GPLv2.

Please see the LICENSE file.