Time To Read Block: Fix untranslated on front end

[t-hamano]

Fixes: #49694

What?

This PR fixes a problem where the unit of time is not translated when the Post Time to Read block is rendered on the front end.

Why?

I have changed the placeholder in the _n() function string from %d to %s and have confirmed that it translates correctly. I don't know the root cause, but in the WordPress core, %s is used as a placeholder in the _n() function as well. Also in Developer Resources, all examples use %s as a placeholder.

Testing Instructions

• Create two posts, one with long content and one with short content.
• Open the site editor.
• Open Home template.
• Insert a Post Time to Read block inside a Query Loop block.
• Change the language of the site.
• Confirm that both singular and plural are translated correctly in the front end.

Screenshots or screencast

Japanese

German

Spanish

[github-actions]

Flaky tests detected in dd22814.
Some tests passed with failed attempts. The failures may not be related to this commit but are still reported for visibility. See the documentation for more information.

🔍 Workflow run URL: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/actions/runs/4662975713
📝 Reported issues:

• [Flaky Test] allows shift tabbing to the block toolbar from the first block #49025 in /test/e2e/specs/site-editor/writing-flow.spec.js
• [Flaky Test] doesn't throw a block error when clicking on a link #47747 in /test/e2e/specs/site-editor/template-part.spec.js
• [Flaky Test] shows changes in a template when a template part it contains is modified #42139 in /test/e2e/specs/site-editor/template-part.spec.js

[ntsekouras]

I didn't dig deep to see why we need to have %s, but in every similar usage in core is like this. Example:

/* translators: %s: Number of comments. */
$new_text = _n( '%s Comment', '%s Comments', $number );

I think we can land this. Although it would be cool to pinpoint the place in code that this is required to work properly.

[t-hamano]

@ntsekouras

Thank you for the review!

I have not been able to find the root cause, but looking at the core codebase and Developer Resources, it appears that the _n() function is supposed to use %s as a placeholder. It's a little unclear, but I'll merge it.

[swissspidy]

I have not been able to find the root cause, but looking at the core codebase and Developer Resources, it appears that the _n() function is supposed to use %s as a placeholder. It's a little unclear, but I'll merge it.

That's not really the root cause. The reason is that the translation call here uses the WordPress default text domain ('default') instead of 'gutenberg' (a special case for the Gutenberg project). That means even though the string %d minute was translated on translate.wordpress.org, it didn't matter because it's the wrong text domain.

Coincidentally, the strings %s minute and %s minutes already exist in core (in human_readable_duration()) with the default text domain and thus are already translated for core. Since you changed the strings here to match core, it magically worked.

Hope that helps.

[swissspidy]

Oh, and WordPress often uses %s for numeric placeholders because the numbers are typically formatted (e.g. with decimal or thousands separator)

[t-hamano]

Thank you for the information, @swissspidy.

Am I correct in understanding that after a major release of WordPress core (i.e., after Gutenberg is bundled with core), any new translations added on the Gutenberg plugin will not be translated unless that translation exists in WordPress core?

If so, then maybe this PR was pointless 😅

[swissspidy]

It seems like that is the case, yes. But haven't checked if there's something special going on elsewhere.