NAME Locale::Wolowitz - Dead simple localization for with JSON. VERSION version 0.4 SYNOPSIS # in ./i18n/locales.coll.json { "Welcome!": { "he": "ברוכים הבאים!", "es": "Bienvenido!" }, "I'm using %1": { "he": "אני משתמש ב%1", "es": "Estoy usando %1" }, "Linux": { "he": "לינוקס" } } # in your app use Locale::Wolowitz; my $w = Locale::Wolowitz->new( './i18n' ); print $w->loc('Welcome!', 'es'); # prints 'Bienvenido!' print $w->loc("I'm using %1", 'he', $w->loc('Linux', 'he')); # prints "אני משתמש בלינוקס" DESCRIPTION Locale::Wolowitz is a very simple text localization system. Yes, another localization system. Frankly, I never realized how to use the standard Perl localization systems such as Locale::Maketext, Gettext, Data::Localize or whatever. It seems they are more meant to localize an application to the language of the system on which its running, which isn't really what I need. Most of the time, seeing as how I'm mostly writing web applications, I wish to localize my applications/websites according to the user's wishes, not by the system. For example, I may create a content management system where the user can select the interface's language. Also, I grew to hate the standard .po files, and thought using a JSON format might be more comfortable. Locale::Wolowitz allows you to provide different languages to end-users of your applications. To some extent, when writing RESTful web applications, this means you can perform language negotiation with visitors (see Content negotiation on Wikipedia ). Locale::Wolowitz works with JSON files. Each file can serve one or more languages. When creating an instance of this module, you are required to pass a path to a directory where your application's JSON localization files are present. These are all loaded and merged into one big hash-ref (unless you tell the module to only load a specific file), which is stored in memory. A file with only one language has to be named .json (where is the name of the language, you'd probably want to use the two-letter ISO 639-1 code). A file with multiple languages must end with .coll.json (this requirement will probably be lifted in the future). The basic idea is to write your application in a base language, and use the JSON files to translate text to other languages. For example, lets say you're writing your application in English and translating it to Hebrew, Spanish, and Dutch. You put Spanish and Dutch translations in one file, and since everybody hates Israel, you put Hebrew translations alone. The Spanish and Dutch file can look like this: # es_and_nl.coll.json { "Welcome!": { "es": "Bienvenido!", "nl": "Welkom!" }, "I'm using %1": { "es": "Estoy usando %1", "nl": "Ik gebruik %1" }, "Linux": {} // this line can also be missing entirely } While the Hebrew file can look like this: # he.json { "Welcome!": "ברוכים הבאים!", "I'm using %1": "אני משתמש ב%1", "Linux": "לינוקס" } When loading these files, Locale::Wolowitz internally merges the two files into one structure: { "Welcome!" => { "es" => "Bienvenido!", "nl" => "Welkom!", "he" => "ברוכים הבאים!", }, "I'm using %1" => { "es" => "Estoy usando %1", "nl" => "Ik gebruik %1", "he" => "אני משתמש ב%1", }, "Linux" => { "he" => "לינוקס", } } Notice the "%1" substrings above. This is a placeholder, just like in other localization paradigms - they are replaced with content you provide, usually dynamic content. In Locale::Wolowitz, placeholders are written with a percent sign, followed by an integer, starting from 1 (e.g. %1, %2, %3). When passing data for the placeholders, make sure you're passing scalars, or printable objects, otherwise you'll encounter errors. We can also see here that Spanish and Dutch have no translation for "Linux". Since Linux is written "Linux" in these languages, they have no translation. When attempting to translate a string that has no translation to the requested language, or has no reference in the JSON files at all, the string is simply returned as is (but placeholders will still be replaced as expected). Say you write your application in English (and thus 'en' is your base language). Since Locale::Wolowitz doesn't really know what your base language is, you can translate texts within the same language. This is more useful when you want to give some of your strings an identifier. For example: "copyrights": { "en": "Copyrights, 2010 Ido Perlmuter", "he": "כל הזכויות שמורות, 2010 עידו פרלמוטר" } CLASS METHODS new( $path / $filename ) Creates a new instance of this module. Requires a path to a directory in which JSON localization files exist, or a path to a specific localization file. If you pass a directory, all JSON localization files will be loaded and merged as described above. If you pass one file, only that file will be loaded. OBJECT METHODS loc( $msg, $lang, [@args] ) Returns the string $msg, translated to the requested language (if such a translation exists, otherwise no traslation occurs). Any other parameters passed to the method (@args) are injected to the placeholders in the string (if present). INTERNAL METHODS _load_locales( $path ) Loads all locale JSON files in the directory $path and returns them as a hash-ref. DIAGNOSTICS The following exceptions are thrown by this module: "You must provide a path to localization directory." This exception is thrown if you haven't provided the "new()" subroutine a path to a localization file, or a directory of localization files. Read the documentation for the "new()" subroutine above. "Can't open localization directory: %s" and "Can't close localization directory: %s" This exception is thrown if Locale::Wolowitz failed to open/close the directory of the localization files. This will probably happen due to permission problems. The error message should include the actual reason for the failure. "Path must be to a directory or a JSON file." This exception is thrown if you passed a wrong value to the "new()" subroutine as the path to the localization directory/file. Either the path is wrong and thus does not exist, or the path does exist, but is not a directory and not a file. "Can't open localization file %s: %s" and "Can't close localization file %s: %s" This exception is thrown if Locale::Wolowitz fails to open/close a specific localization file. This will usually happen because of permission problems. The error message will include both the name of the file, and the actual reason for the failure. CONFIGURATION AND ENVIRONMENT "Locale::Wolowitz" requires no configuration files or environment variables. DEPENDENCIES "Locale::Wolowitz" depends on the following CPAN modules: * Carp * JSON::Any "Locale::Wolowitz" recommends JSON and/or JSON::XS for actually being able to parse the JSON files. INCOMPATIBILITIES WITH OTHER MODULES None reported. BUGS AND LIMITATIONS No bugs have been reported. Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-Locale-Wolowitz@rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at . AUTHOR Ido Perlmuter LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT Copyright (c) 2010-2012, Ido Perlmuter "ido@ido50.net". This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either version 5.8.1 or any later version. See perlartistic and perlgpl. The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY BECAUSE THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE SOFTWARE, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR, OR CORRECTION. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE AS PERMITTED BY THE ABOVE LICENCE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER SOFTWARE), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.