[Tutor] Simple way for i18n ?

[Michael Lange]

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:58:58 +0100
"francois schnell" <francois.schnell at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Now I'd like to be able to change language without loging out, change
> language, log in.
> 
> Martelli says in his book that to set the default language for the app I
> just need to do:
> 
> >>> os.environ.setdefault('LANG', 'fr_FR')
> 
> and Python doesn't complain (but doesn't work) but if I then do:
> 
> >>> print locale.getdefaultlocale()
> 
> Python says : ('en_GB', 'utf-8')  # meaning that really couldn't work ?
> 
> How can I have my app in French even if I'm still in the GB version of
> Ubuntu (change the language for the app) ?
> 

Hi Francois,

I tried to do so with one of my apps (on Mandrake) and found that I have to change
the LANGUAGE environment variable, changing LANG had no effect on this.
>From the python gettext docs I found:

    If languages is not given, then the following environment variables are searched: LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, and LANG.

So it looks like the easiest may be to do

    $ LANGUAGE=en_GB

in the shell before you start your app.

> I've also tried the "translation" way instead of the "install" way:
> 
> if I do:
> gettext.install("myapp", localedir) #it translates in French when I'm in the
> French Ubuntu
> but if I do instead: gettext.translation("myapp", localedir,
> languages="fr_FR") #with the same localedir which worked before
> =>
> Python complains:
> "    gettext.translation("myapp", localedir, languages="fr_FR")
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.4/gettext.py", line 480, in translation
>     raise IOError(ENOENT, 'No translation file found for domain', domain)
> IOError: [Errno 2] No translation file found for domain: 'myapp' "
> 
> I find it strange that "install" finds it but not "translation" (for the
> same localedir) ?
> 

I admit I nevered bothered to find out how to use gettext.translation() since gettext.install()
works that fine for me. Maybe you should set "languages" to "fr" instead of "fr_FR" (just a guess though)?

I hope this helps

Michael