Translation not missing if default contains nil

[mkamensky]

The way I read the docs, calling

I18n.translate(:foo, default: [nil])

Should return nil rather than raise an exception (when :foo does not exist). However, this is not what happens in the code (or in real life).

[dillonwelch]

I think it depends on your settings. The exception is only raised if your have i18n configured to raise errors on missing translations. For example, here's what I get in my rails console.

[7] pry(main)> I18n.translate(:foo, default: [nil])
=> "translation missing: en.foo"

The way I read the docs

Can you link to the part of the docs where you read that this should return nil?

[mkamensky]

I think it depends on your settings. The exception is only raised if your have i18n configured to raise errors on missing translations. For example, here's what I get in my rails console.

[7] pry(main)> I18n.translate(:foo, default: [nil])
=> "translation missing: en.foo"

Thanks. The point is not the exception, it is the expectation to get nil rather than an exception, or 'translate missing'. I do want to raise an exception when the translation is missing and I did not supply default:nil

The way I read the docs

Can you link to the part of the docs where you read that this should return nil?

I don't actual remember what I was referring to, and can't find it now... In any case, I think the behaviour I was expecting is more consistent and more useful: The current behaviour is that the function goes through the list of defaults one by one as long as the previous translation was missing. This happens for all values except nil, so I would expect it to happen for nil as well. It is also more useful, since it allows checking if either the translation or the defaults exist, and if not continue in some other manner, rather than raising an exception (of course, there are other means to achieve the same, but less convenient).

[rahim]

I hit this too.

For what it's worth for anyone stumbling on the same problem, I had something like this in a Rails view that I was doing some maintenance on:

<% if t("a.b.#{dynamic_key}", default: nil) %>
  <p><%= t("a.b.#{dynamic_key}") %></p>
<% end %>

With raise_on_missing_translations = true that default: nil is not enough to hint we're sometimes expecting missing translations here.

I found the following was though:

<% if t("a.b.#{dynamic_key}", default: "").present? %>
  <p><%= t("a.b.#{dynamic_key}") %></p>
<% end %>