Lua Lite i18n

A very simple set of tools for easy handling of translatable texts in Lua source code.

Extracts marked strings that need translations, stores texts with translations in CSV format and builds a module that can be loaded at runtime with translations.

Quick start:

Managing the language packs

Assume some Lua source files where translatable strings are wrapped in TR function calls

local lite_i18n = require"lite_i18n"

-- parse a script file, store it in 'en' region in a new language pack collection
local packs = { en = lite_i18n.parse_file"test.lua" }

-- write a single language pack out for sending to translator
lite_i18n.dump_pack(packs.en, "en", "to_trans.csv")

-- load in the translated texts, add to existing collection
lite_i18n.load_packs("from_trans.csv", packs)

-- store all translation for later use
lite_i18n.dump_packs(packs, "all_trans.csv")

-- write the language module
lite_i18n.write_package(packs, "i18n.lua")

Using the language pack module

local lang = some_config_option()  -- assume "en", "fr", etc.
local TR = require"i18n"(lang)

print(TR"Some text that should be translated")

Data structures

Translations are held in 'packs', simply a map of orginal text to translated text. All packs are held in a map of their region name/code.

packs = {
  en = {
    ["Orginal text"] = "Original text",
    ...
  },
  fr = {
    ["Orginal text"] = "Texte original",
    ...
  },
  de = {
    ["Orginal text"] = "Urtext",
    ...
  },
  ...
}

These packs are written to CSV in three columns: <orginal text>,<region>,<translated text>

Functions

• parse_string( src, [pack] ) Parses a given string src and pull out all the TR marked pharses, entering them into the given pack (or new empty table if no provided)

• parse_file( path, [pack] ) Same as parse_string but loads the source from a file

• dump_pack( pack, lang, path ) Writes a single langauge pack to a CSV file, marking it as lang region

• dump_packs( packs, path ) Writes a whole collection of language packs to CSV file

• load_packs( path, [packs] ) Loads language packs from CSV file at given path into packs table (or new empty table if no provided)

• write_package( packs, path ) Writes a Lua module with all translations given in packs

Thanks

The source parser was taken from LuaMinify ( https://github.com/stravant/LuaMinify ) under the MIT licence