R users are a global community. From Xiamen to Santiago, Addis Ababa
to Tbilisi, Ogallala to Adelaide, R users are legion and speak many
different languages. To serve these diverse communities, R includes
built-in tools based on the GNU gettext system that
make it possible to translate user-facing communications like messages,
warnings, and errors. Unfortunately, this system uses new file types
(.pot templates, .po files, and
.mo binaries) that come with their own quirks and
idiosyncrasies. The goal of potools is make it as easy as possible to
translate your package by abstracting away as many details of the
gettext system as possible.
The potool logo features a potoo and was designed by Allison Horst.
Start by installing the released version potools from CRAN:
install.packages("potools")Or the development version from GitHub:
# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("MichaelChirico/potools")You’ll also need to install gettext, the GNU command line toolkit that powers potools. Installation depends on your operating system:
On Windows, gettext is bundled with Rtools, so if you’re developing packages you probably already have it.
On Mac, it’s easiest to install with brew:
brew install gettext
On Linux, it’s usually already installed; otherwise you’ll need
to install gettext with your distro’s standard
tool.
There are two core workflows provided by potools:
translate_package() is a one-stop-shop for
interactively setting your package and providing translations, as
described in ?translate_package.
po_extract(), po_create(),
po_update(), and po_compile() let you perform
the individual steps of translate_package() as described in
vignette("developers") and
vignette("translators").
potools is by no means the first tool for facilitating
internationalization; other open-source projects have deeper experience
in this domain and as a result there are some relatively mature options
for working with gettext/the po ecosystem in general. Here is a
smattering of such tools that I’ve come across: