Improve i18n/locale support

[a8cjones]

Unless I'm missing something, there doesn't seem to be a easy way of supporting multiple locales within the same template, which results in needing multiple templates.

Using Locale.setDefault('xx') in Java is not thread-safe, so not a solution.

What I'd like ideally would be to have an alternative method signature to template.apply() which accepted a Locale object.
e.g. public String apply(Object context, Locale locale)

[jknack]

I built a multi-lang app with i18n helper. Just one template multiples messages*.properties.

Not sure why we need a Locale in the apply method.

[a8cjones]

An example is this:-

I have a loop which is sending out mails. The language of the mail depends upon the language of the recipient.

I do have multiple messages*.properties, but how does that help in this case?

I can use Locale.setDefault("xx") prior to template.apply(), but it's not thread-safe, so sometimes the mail goes out in the wrong language (Locale is changed on another thread)

So, I have to "hard code" the locale into the template {{i18n "hello" locale="fr" bundle="messages"}} resulting in multiple templates.

[jknack]

are you using i18n helper right?

Suppose there is a Recipient class with a lang attribute or getter which has the current locale/lang. Then:

Template template = ...;

for (Recipient r : recipients) {
  template.apply(r);
}

{{i18 "hi" locale=r.lang}},

{{i18 "body" locale=r.lang}},

Does it work?

[a8cjones]

Ah, OK, that's what I'm missing. Let me give that a shot and see if it works (it should I think)

[a8cjones]

I can't get your suggestion to work unfortunately, the lang from the Recipient (as per your example) just gets ignored, and I always get the default bundle. I can only get it to work if I hard-code the locale e.g. locale="fr", and then it works.

[jknack]

that isn't possible! what expression did you for locale? My guess is that is resolving to null and that is the reason why it fallbacks to default.

In my example lang is a getLang method on Recipient

[a8cjones]

Maybe I'm completely missing something, but here are my files...

i18n/mailbundle_fr.properties

hello=bonjour

i18n/mailbundle.properties

hello=hello

res/mailtemplate2.hbs

{{{i18n "hello" bundle="i18n/mailbundle" locale=r.lang}}} test

Recipient.java

public class Recipient {
public final String lang;
public Recipient(String lang) {
this.lang=lang;
}
public String getLang() {
return lang;
}
}

HandlebarsTest.java

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    Handlebars handlebars = new Handlebars();
    Template template = handlebars.compile("res/mailtemplate2");

    Recipient r = new Recipient("fr");
    System.out.println(template.apply(r));
}

output

hello test

[jknack]

Yea it should work... will try it later today and get back to you

[a8cjones]

Thanks, I appreciate it!

[jknack]

oh wait! I see the problem, there is no r in the handlebars context:

template.apply(r);

you have a to use this, like:

{{{i18n "hello" bundle="i18n/mailbundle" locale=this.lang}}} test or just

{{{i18n "hello" bundle="i18n/mailbundle" locale=lang}}} test

👍

[a8cjones]

That did the trick! Thanks!

[jknack]

cool, glad it works!

Also, I invite you to try: http://jooby.org