NSLocalizedString managing translations over app versions

Question

Here is a scenario:

I write an iPhone app using NSLocalizedString incase I decide to release it in different countries.
I decide to release the App over in France.
The translator takes my Localized.strings and does a great job translating
I update the app, and need some more translating.

I'm using genstrings and it overwrites the good work the translator did, is there a easy way for me to manage my translations over App versions?

I think this question has been asked a few times before, and the answer has been "no". — Hot Licks, Jun 27 '13 at 11:34
Where there is a problem, there is a solution - it will be out there. Gabriele Petronella's answer looks pretty good, going to give that a run. — Oliver Atkinson, Jun 27 '13 at 11:58

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 27 '13 at 11:35

Check out this project on GitHub, which provides a python scripts which makes genstrings a little bit smarter.

Since I don't like link-only answers (links may die), I'll also drop here the python script (all credits go to the author of the linked project)

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

# Localize.py - Incremental localization on XCode projects
# João Moreno 2009
# http://joaomoreno.com/

# Modified by Steve Streeting 2010 http://www.stevestreeting.com
# Changes
# - Use .strings files encoded as UTF-8
#   This is useful because Mercurial and Git treat UTF-16 as binary and can't
#   diff/merge them. For use on iPhone you can run an iconv script during build to
#   convert back to UTF-16 (Mac OS X will happily use UTF-8 .strings files).
# - Clean up .old and .new files once we're done

# Modified by Pierre Dulac 2012 http://friendcashapp.com
# Changes
# - use logging instead of print
# Adds
# - MIT Licence
# - the first parameter in the command line to specify the path of *.lproj directories
# - an optional paramter to control the debug level (set to info by default)
# Fixes
# - do not convert a file if it is already in utf-8
# - allow multiline translations generated by genstrings by modifing the re_translation regex
# - 

# MIT Licence
#
# Copyright (C) 2012 Pierre Dulac
#
# Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and 
# associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, 
# including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, 
# and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, 
# subject to the following conditions:
#
# The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial 
# portions of the Software.
#
# THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT 
# LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. 
# IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, 
# WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE 
# SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

from sys import argv
from codecs import open
from re import compile
from copy import copy
import os
import shutil
import optparse
import logging
logging.getLogger().level = logging.INFO

__version__ = "0.1"
__license__ = "MIT"

USAGE = "%prog [options] <url>"
VERSION = "%prog v" + __version__

re_translation = compile(r'^"((?:[^"]|\\")+)" = "((?:[^"]|\\")+)";(?:\n)?$')
re_comment_single = compile(r'^/\*.*\*/$')
re_comment_start = compile(r'^/\*.*$')
re_comment_end = compile(r'^.*\*/$')

class LocalizedString():
    def __init__(self, comments, translation):
        self.comments, self.translation = comments, translation
        self.key, self.value = re_translation.match(self.translation).groups()

    def __unicode__(self):
        return u'%s%s\n' % (u''.join(self.comments), self.translation)

class LocalizedFile():
    def __init__(self, fname=None, auto_read=False):
        self.fname = fname
        self.reset()

        if auto_read:
            self.read_from_file(fname)

    def reset(self):
        self.strings = []
        self.strings_d = {}

    def read_from_file(self, fname=None):
        self.reset()

        fname = self.fname if fname == None else fname
        try:
            #f = open(fname, encoding='utf_8', mode='r')
            f = open(fname, encoding='utf_8', mode='r')
        except:
            print 'File %s does not exist.' % fname
            exit(-1)

        try:
            line = f.readline()
            logging.debug(line)
        except:
            logging.error("Can't read line for file: %s" % fname)
            raise

        i = 1
        while line:
            comments = [line]

            if not re_comment_single.match(line):
                while line and not re_comment_end.match(line):
                    line = f.readline()
                    comments.append(line)

            line = f.readline()
            i += 1

            # handle multi lines
            while len(line) > 1 and line[-2] != u';':
                line += f.readline()
                i += 1

            logging.debug("%d %s" % (i, line.rstrip('\n')))
            if line and re_translation.match(line):
                translation = line
            else:
                logging.error("Line %d of file '%s' raising the exception: %s" % (i, self.fname, line))
                raise Exception('invalid file')

            line = f.readline()
            i += 1
            while line and line == u'\n':
                line = f.readline()
                i += 1

            string = LocalizedString(comments, translation)
            self.strings.append(string)
            self.strings_d[string.key] = string

        f.close()

    def save_to_file(self, fname=None):
        fname = self.fname if fname == None else fname
        try:
            f = open(fname, encoding='utf_8', mode='w')
        except:
            print 'Couldn\'t open file %s.' % fname
            exit(-1)

        # sort by key
        self.strings.sort(key=lambda item: item.key)

        for string in self.strings:
            f.write(string.__unicode__())

        f.close()

    def merge_with(self, new):
        merged = LocalizedFile()

        for string in new.strings:
            if self.strings_d.has_key(string.key):
                new_string = copy(self.strings_d[string.key])
                new_string.comments = string.comments
                string = new_string

            merged.strings.append(string)
            merged.strings_d[string.key] = string

        return merged

    def update_with(self, new):
        for string in new.strings:
            if not self.strings_d.has_key(string.key):
                self.strings.append(string)
                self.strings_d[string.key] = string

def merge(merged_fname, old_fname, new_fname):
    try:
        old = LocalizedFile(old_fname, auto_read=True)
        new = LocalizedFile(new_fname, auto_read=True)
        merged = old.merge_with(new)
        merged.save_to_file(merged_fname)
    except Exception, inst:
        logging.error('Error: input files have invalid format.')
        raise

STRINGS_FILE = 'Localizable.strings'

def localize(path, excluded_paths):
    languages = [os.path.join(path,name) for name in os.listdir(path) if name.endswith('.lproj') and os.path.isdir(os.path.join(path,name))]
    print "languages found", languages

    for language in languages:
        original = merged = language + os.path.sep + STRINGS_FILE
        old = original + '.old'
        new = original + '.new'

        if os.path.isfile(original):
            try:
                open(original, encoding='utf_8', mode='r').read()
                os.rename(original, old)
            except:
                os.system('iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 "%s" > "%s"' % (original, old))

            # gen
            os.system('find %s -name \*.m -not -path "%s" | xargs genstrings -q -o "%s"' % (path, excluded_paths, language))

            try:
                open(original, encoding='utf_8', mode='r').read()
                shutil.copy(original, new)
            except:
                os.system('iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 "%s" > "%s"' % (original, new))

            # merge  
            merge(merged, old, new)
            logging.info("Job done for language: %s" % language)
        else:
            os.system('genstrings -q -o "%s" `find %s -name "*.m" -not -path "%s"`' % (language, path, excluded_paths))
            os.rename(original, old)
            try:
                open(old, encoding='utf_8', mode='r').read()
            except:
                os.system('iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 "%s" > "%s"' % (old, original))

        if os.path.isfile(old):
            os.remove(old)
        if os.path.isfile(new):
            os.remove(new)

def parse_options():
    """parse_options() -> opts, args

    Parse any command-line options given returning both
    the parsed options and arguments.
    """

    parser = optparse.OptionParser(usage=USAGE, version=VERSION)

    parser.add_option("-d", "--debug",
            action="store_true", default=False, dest="debug",
            help="Set to DEBUG the logging level (default to INFO)")

    parser.add_option("-p", "--path",
            action="store", type="str", default=os.getcwd(), dest="path",
            help="Path (relative or absolute) to use for searching for *.lproj directories")

    parser.add_option("-e", "--exclude",
            action="store", type="str", default=None, dest="excluded_paths",
            help="Regex for paths to exclude ex. ``./Folder1/*``")

    opts, args = parser.parse_args()
    return opts, args

if __name__ == '__main__':
    opts, args = parse_options()
    if opts.debug:
        logging.getLogger().level = logging.DEBUG
    if opts.path:
        opts.path = os.path.realpath(opts.path)
    if opts.excluded_paths:
        opts.excluded_paths = os.path.realpath(opts.excluded_paths)
    logging.info("Running the script on path %s" % opts.path)
    localize(opts.path, opts.excluded_paths)

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 27 '13 at 12:08

3

I use:

http://www.loc-suite.com

To only translate the new parts

answered Jun 27 '13 at 12:08

Stanislav Goryachev

81
6

this tool is absolutely awesome! – rockstarberlin Nov 15 '13 at 21:50

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 18 '18 at 16:08

0

I actually started using a tool called PhraseApp https://phraseapp.com/projects

It's worth looking into if you have to localise an app!

edited Oct 18 '18 at 16:08

shim

9,289
12
69
108

answered Jun 03 '15 at 13:17

Oliver Atkinson

7,970
32
43

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 07 '15 at 12:30

0

I was having a similar issue. I changed a lot of keys for my NSLocalizedString-macros and was frightened that I'd ship the App with missing translations (didn't want to run through the whole App manually and check if everything's there either...).

I tried out the github project that Gabriella Petronella posted but I wasn't really that happy with it, so I wrote my own python module to accomplish what I wanted to do. (I'm not gonna post the code here, since it's a whole module and not only one script :D)

answered Oct 07 '15 at 12:30

Jan Nash

1,883
19
30

you should generate constants from the strings - I've moved to this now. – Oliver Atkinson Oct 08 '15 at 13:32
That still doesn't tell you if you have a translation for the string, does it? – Jan Nash Oct 08 '15 at 13:43
No, but thats not as bad as a missing translation! I would rather the compiler tell me I'm missing a translation then a 3rd party tool :) – Oliver Atkinson Oct 08 '15 at 14:06

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

Here is the couple of options you can chose to go with:

You can use some hand-written solution like the script mentioned above which will not completely rewrite the old files while adding a recently translated strings to them.
You can also create an additional strings.h file which will contain all the strings you do have so you will not need to rewrite them all the time, just in one place. So genstrings is not necessary anymore. However there is a con of using this: the string.h file will be unstructured which is probably not convenient for the big projects.

Thanks to Best practice using NSLocalizedString

// In strings.h

 #define YOUR_STRING_KEY NSLocalizedString(@"Cancel", nil)

// Somewhere else in you code

NSLog(@"%@", YOUR_STRING_KEY);

NSLocalizedString managing translations over app versions

5 Answers5