I18n in model validations: Possible or not?

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 3:13pm

Hi there,

I have the following validation in a model:

validates_inclusion_of :whatever, :in => [true, false], :message =>
I18n.t(‘please_select_whatever’)

It seems that the translation does not work in production mode: in all
languages it’s always the english translation that gets diplayed
(probably because I set english as the default locale in my app…?).

So I am assuming that we can’t translate validations in models, because
models get loaded only once - when the server is booted (and then, the
default locale would be applied).

Am I right? If yes, how would you solve this problem?

Thanks for your help!
Tom

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 4:05pm

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Tom Ha [email protected] wrote:

So I am assuming that we can’t translate validations in models, because
models get loaded only once - when the server is booted (and then, the
default locale would be applied).

Am I right? If yes, how would you solve this problem?

Thanks for your help!
Tom

try passing the argument as a lambda function

:message =>lambda { I18n.t(‘please_select_whatever’) }

i havent try it but it makes sense

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 4:14pm

:message =>lambda { I18n.t(‘please_select_whatever’) }

Thanks for the suggestion - unfortunately, it doesn’t change the
outcome…

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 4:23pm

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Marnen Laibow-Koser
[email protected]wrote:

Best,

since that is the default behavior i assumed ‘please_select_whatever’
is a
dynamic value taken from the model, if its not the case
everything should word without the need of doing the translation in the
model

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 4:16pm

Tom Ha wrote in post #968590:

:message =>lambda { I18n.t(‘please_select_whatever’) }

Thanks for the suggestion - unfortunately, it doesn’t change the
outcome…

Perhaps you should just have the validation routine generate the
translation key (in other words, leave off I18n.t), then apply the
translation in the view layer.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 4:25pm

then apply the
translation in the view layer.

Thanks… In that case, how could that be done if I have the following
partial, for the error messages?

<%= error_messages_for :whatever_model, :header_message => nil, :message
=> nil %>

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 4:28pm

Tom Ha wrote in post #968598:

then apply the
translation in the view layer.

Thanks… In that case, how could that be done if I have the following
partial, for the error messages?

<%= error_messages_for :whatever_model, :header_message => nil, :message
=> nil %>

I don’t think it can. You’d need to use the errors array instead.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 4:45pm

Radhames Brito wrote in post #968604:

you are going to need to create a custom validation and add the field to
the
locales it seems

#211 Validations in Rails 3 - RailsCasts

I don’t see why.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 6:17pm

On Dec 15, 2010, at 6:13 AM, Tom Ha wrote:

So I am assuming that we can’t translate validations in models, because
models get loaded only once - when the server is booted (and then, the
default locale would be applied).

Am I right? If yes, how would you solve this problem?

In particular see the table in section “5.1.2 Error Message
Interpolation”

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 6:32pm

http://guides.rubyonrails.org/i18n.html#translations-for-active-record-models

In particular see the table in section “5.1.2 Error Message
Interpolation”

Thanks, that helped. The following works:

In the model:

validates_inclusion_of :whatever, :in => [true, false], :message =>
I18n.t(‘activerecord.errors.models.my_model.attributes.whatever.please_select_whatever’)

In config/locales/en.yml:

en:
activerecord:
errors:
models:
my_model:
attributes:
whatever:
please_select_whatever: “Please select whatever.”

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 6:52pm

In the model:

validates_inclusion_of :whatever, :in => [true, false], :message =>

I18n.t(‘activerecord.errors.models.my_model.attributes.whatever.please_select_whatever’)

In config/locales/en.yml:

en:
activerecord:
errors:
models:
my_model:
attributes:
whatever:
please_select_whatever: “Please select whatever.”

Nope, this doesn’t work. I suspect it’s still the same problem: it seems
not possible to have translations in models (since they only get loaded
once).

It may work for the default “keys” (for “validates_presence_of :name”
the key would be “blank”), but not the custom ones.

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 4:37pm

you are going to need to create a custom validation and add the field to
the
locales it seems

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 9:08pm

We’ve done it in the Kete app (GitHub - kete/kete: Kete was developed by Horowhenua Library Trust and Katipo Communications Ltd. to build a digital library of Horowhenua material.), but I
can’t recall the trick. I’ll check with the guy that did it an see if
he has an answer for you…

Cheers,
Walter

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 7:08pm

It may work for the default “keys” (for “validates_presence_of :name”
the key would be “blank”), but not the custom ones.

To sum it up: The solution is NOT to include any custom message keys
in the models, like…

:message =>
I18n.t(‘activerecord.errors.models.my_model.attributes.whatever.please_select_whatever’)

The model will then apply the default message keys, for example
“:inclusion” in the case of “validates_inclusion_of”

…and in config/locales/en.yml you need to have:

en:
activerecord:
errors:
models:
my_model:
attributes:
whatever:
inclusion: “Please select whatever.” # see key:
“inclusion”

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 9:11pm

I’ll check with the guy that did it an see if he has an answer for you…

Thanks - why not, if there’s a better/more elegant trick than the
solution above (it works…).

Cheers,
Tom

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 9:17pm

That’s what I get for skimming…

We used lambda which I believe was already shown.

from Kete’s app/models/choice.rb:

validates_uniqueness_of :label, :message => lambda {
I18n.t(‘choice_model.must_be_unique’) }

Kieran, feel free to update with more info, if there are more details
to point out.

Cheers,
Walter

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Walter McGinnis

tharrisx · December 15, 2010, 9:35pm

Hey,

In order to get locales working at runtime, I made the ActiveRecord
validations call a proc (IIRC, similar to how Rails 3 does it now).

If you’re using a Rails gem, or Rails is vendored, and you don’t want
it to be lost when upgrading, put it in an all_extensions.rb
initializer, like I did here:

github.com

kete/kete/blob/master/config/initializers/all_extensions.rb#L98-107


      
          
          
# Include extensions into Rails components here
          
          
module ActiveRecord
            class Base
              # Kieran Pilkington, 2009-07-09
              # Adding a class_as_key method which returns a key for a model as used in params
              def class_as_key
                # self. is necessary in this case because class is a reserved word
                self.class.name.tableize.singularize.to_sym
              end
            end
          end
          
          
module I18n
            # EOIN: I have servere doubts about the usefulness of this extension. It is
            # called in a number of places in the code but it's not clear what benefit it
            # gives us.
            def self.available_locales_with_labels
              @@available_locales_with_labels ||=
                begin

Regards
Kieran

Kieran Pilkington
http://twitter.com/k776 - http://k776.tumblr.com

tharrisx · December 16, 2010, 9:29am

Thanks for all the input!