Templates and catalogues

Two build steps, both from @gopherium/gottext/build. One reads your source and writes the template. The other turns translated catalogues into JSON.

This entry point needs gettext-extractor, an optional peer. Install it or importing anything from @gopherium/gottext/build fails to load:

pnpm add -D gettext-extractor

Writing the template

pot reads your sources and returns the .pot file as bytes:

import { writeFileSync } from 'node:fs'
import { pot } from '@gopherium/gottext/build'

writeFileSync('languages/myapp.pot', pot({
  domain: 'myapp',
  root: process.cwd(),
  sources: ['src/**/*.ts', 'src/**/*.tsx'],
}))

• domain is the text domain the template carries.
• root is what the globs resolve against.
• sources are the globs holding your messages.
• ignored optionally names paths inside those globs to skip.
• goRoots optionally names directories of Go source to read too.

It finds four call shapes: __ for a plain message, _x when a word needs a context to tell two senses apart, _n for a plural, and _nx for a plural with a context. It finds them written plainly or through an i18n. prefix.

Run it in a script your build calls, and commit the template. It is the list every translator works from.

Messages from Go

If a message lives in Go rather than TypeScript, mark it and name the directory in goRoots:

Msgid("Save")

goMessages is the walk behind it, exported if you need it alone. Without goRoots no Go source is read at all.

Compiling catalogues

A .po file is for translators, not for browsers. compileCatalog turns one into the shape @wordpress/i18n loads, and serializeCatalog writes it as JSON:

import { readFileSync, writeFileSync } from 'node:fs'
import { compileCatalog, serializeCatalog } from '@gopherium/gottext/build'

const compiled = compileCatalog(readFileSync('languages/es-ES.po', 'utf8'))
writeFileSync('src/languages/es-ES.json', serializeCatalog(compiled))

The output is sorted and deterministic, with the metadata entry first, so recompiling an unchanged catalogue produces an identical file and your diffs stay quiet.

Ship one JSON file per language and load it from startLocale.