XML-translator

XML-translator is a tiny Bash hack to demonstrate how XMLStarlet can be used with online translator (e.g. Google Translator) to easily translate arbitrary XML files.

Dependencies

• cURL: library and command-line tool for transferring data using various protocols ;
• XMLStarlet: command line XML toolkit ;
• Google Translator: Google's free online language translation service. The service can be disrupted or break compatibility without notice.

Disclaimer

If you want to use this script you should be aware that's it's a hack using Google Translate, and shouldn't be considered as a real solution.

You should also be aware that Google provide a Translation API as a paid service.

Count characters to translate

If you want to get an idea of the cost of the translation, you can use the following command to count characters to translate.

First, define xpath, i18nTag and inputFile to your need :

xpath="/xpath/to/parent"
i18nTag="tag_with_i18n"
inputFile=./input.xml

Then run this command to count:

xmlstarlet sel -t -m "$xpath" -v "$i18nTag" "$inputFile" | wc -c

Usage

Simply run (psst, read section [Be responsible](#Be responsible) below):

./xml-translator.bash en zh ./test.en.xml
Overwrite target file: ./test.en.zh.xml ? [Y/n]

Result XML –with translated string– is store in test.en.zh.xml ; target language is appended to input filename.

Be responsible

By default the script doesn't reach for Google Translator. So running it will result in the use of dummy text:

[1] Terms And Conditions -> dummy text [offline mode]
[2] Catalog Menu -> dummy text [offline mode]
[3] Store Catalog -> dummy text [offline mode]
[4] Mini Shopping Cart -> dummy text [offline mode]

You must take responsabilities for the use of this script. In order to do so, you need to set the hackGoogle variable to true in xml-translator.bash:

hackGoogle=true

Then running again will use translated text:

[1] Terms And Conditions -> 条款和条件
[2] Catalog Menu -> 目录菜单
[3] Store Catalog -> 商店目录
[4] Mini Shopping Cart -> 迷你购物车

Troubleshooting

If the script stop immediatly, check for XML namespace as they are problematic with current implementation.

A simple solution is to remove namespace, another one is to submit a pull request.

Enjoy! :)