Rails i18n default value

Question

My current Application has a complete english translation, but i can't make sure additional languages are fully implemented, too.

This results into translation_missing warnings or rather strings like "de, install, steps, language"

Is there a way to tell rails to use the english translation in case there is no (in this example) german one?

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 14 '11 at 14:00

We have this in config/initializers/i18n.rb:

module I18n
  # For MissingTranslationData, fall back to the default locale and then to the last key.
  # For other exceptions, use the default_exception_handler.
  def self.fallback_exception_handler(exception, locale, key, options)
    options ||= {}
    if !Rails.env.development? && exception.is_a?(MissingTranslationData)
      if locale == self.default_locale
        send(:normalize_translation_keys, locale, key, options[:scope]).last.to_s
      else
        self.t(key, options.merge(:locale => self.default_locale))
      end
    else
      send :default_exception_handler, exception, locale, key, options
    end
  end

end

I18n.exception_handler = :fallback_exception_handler

Note that it will not fall back in development, by design (so you notice missing translations).

Also, this is a Rails 2 app. I believe the fallback exception handling has changed somewhat in Rails 3.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 16 '10 at 12:48

@tsdbrown's is a good suggestion. Mine is a bit more simplistic. When you create your German resource file, for instance, one way to approach it is to start with your English file, and pass the that to your translators. Whatever they don't translate still exists, just in English. Then you don't have this problem at all. One more advantage to using this method is that you ensure when you want to translate the file completely, you don't have to do a giant search and compare to add the missing strings.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 22 '13 at 08:39

This is already the case!

Rails will only output the "Translation missing" when you're developing.

In production mode, Rails will do exactly what you requested: Fall back to the translation from the default locale, which is specified in config/application.rb.

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:27

I agree with NinjaCat. And Henrik's solution looks very promising +1!

I found it useful to mark those new missing translations (which appear as English in the 'de' file) with a marker such as +++ , so that the translators can find them easily.

Here's an additional tip:

You can override the lookup method in the I18N backend in Development mode, to make it print out the keys Rails is trying to lookup in the I18N backend -- this way you can effectively double-check in dev-mode that the I18N key you put somewhere in your code are really looked up in the backend in the location you thought they should be in... (I've seen quite some cases where the translation strings are in the L10N file, but with incorrect keys -- this method helps against that).

http://unixgods.org/~tilo/Rails/where_is_Rails_trying_to_lookup_L10N_strings.html

Rails i18n default value

6 Answers6