Class Intl

java.lang.Object

org.javagi.util.Intl

@NullMarked
public class Intl
extends Object

Utility class to translate text to the current locale using GNU Gettext.

To use this class, call bindtextdomain and textdomain at the start of your application, ideally at the top of your main() method, but in any case before Gtk is initialized. For every text message that is displayed to the users, call one of the i18n(String) methods to retrieve a translation in the current locale. When no translation is present, the original text is returned.

It is recommended to statically import the i18n(String) methods in all classes where it is used.

Before marking strings as internationalizable, uses of the string concatenation operator need to be converted to MessageFormat or String.format(String, Object...) syntax. For example, "file " + filename + " not found" becomes MessageFormat.format("file {0} not found", filename) or String.format("file %s not found", filename). Only after this is done, can the strings be marked and extracted.

This class requires GNU Gettext to be installed. Specifically, it will try to load the libgettextlib shared library. If that did not work, all methods will silently fallback to return the original (English) messages.

Gettext offers tools to extract a message catalogue from your application sources and create and compile per-language translation files. Consult the GNU Gettext documentation for details.

Constructor Summary

Constructors

Constructor	Description
Intl()

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method	Description
static @Nullable String	bindtextdomain(String domainname, String dirname)	Set directory containing message catalogs for Gettext.
static String	i18n(String msgid)	Translate the string.
static String	i18n(String context, String msgid)	Translate a string with context.
static String	i18n(String msgid, String plural, int n)	Translate a string that can be singular or plural.
static @Nullable String	textdomain(String domainname)	Set or retrieve the current text domain for Gettext.

Methods inherited from class Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Details

Intl

public Intl()

Method Details

bindtextdomain

public static @Nullable String bindtextdomain(String domainname,
 String dirname)

Set directory containing message catalogs for Gettext.

Parameters:

domainname - the message domain

dirname - the base directory of the hierarchy containing message catalogs for domainname

Returns:

the current base directory for domain domainname, or null if an error occured.

textdomain

public static @Nullable String textdomain(String domainname)

Set or retrieve the current text domain for Gettext.

Parameters:

domainname - the message domain

Returns:

the message domain, or null if an error occured.

i18n

public static String i18n(String msgid)

Translate the string.

Parameters:

msgid - the string to translate

Returns:

the translation, or msgid if none is found

See Also:

• GLib.dgettext(String, String)

i18n

public static String i18n(String msgid,
 String plural,
 int n)

Translate a string that can be singular or plural.

Parameters:

msgid - the string to translate

plural - the string to translate (plural form)

n - determines whether singular or plural translation is chosen

Returns:

the translation, or msgid or plural if none is found

See Also:

• GLib.dngettext(String, String, String, int)

i18n

public static String i18n(String context,
 String msgid)

Translate a string with context.

Parameters:

context - context of the string to translate

msgid - the string to translate

Returns:

the translation, or msgid if none is found

See Also:

• GLib.dpgettext2(String, String, String)