Consuming strings in code

 Impacts: 

• Module developers
• Themers

The main aim is to provide developers with the ability to define interface text in their codebase using custom identifiers. The developers can also provide some meta data surrounding the strings if needed.

For example,

// Instead of doing this
t('Hello @name!', ['@name' => $name], ['context' => 'short greeting']);

// Do this
t('dashboard.greeting.short', ['@name' => $name]);

Where dashboard.greeting.short would be defined in dashboard.string.yml file as follows,

dashboard.greetings.short:
  default: "Hello @name!"

Following is an sample string definitions used for examples on this page.

dashboard.greetings.short:
  default: "Hello @name!"
  placeholders:
    - key: "@name"
      type: string
  comments:
    - "The short greeting would be used on narrow width devices."
node.elapsed_time:
  default: "@time ago"
  placeholders:
    - key: "@time"
      type: string
comments.count:
  default: "1 comment"
  default_plural: "@count comments"
  placeholders:
    - key: "@count"
      type: int
dashboard.title:
  default: "Dashboard"
calendar_month.may:
  default: "May"
  msgctxt: 'Long month name'
welcome.message:
  default: "Hello Earth!"

Usage

PHP code: using t()

Example: Formatting how long ago a node was created

Before

<?php
$ago = t('@time ago',  array('@time' =>  \Drupal::service('date.formatter')->formatInterval((time() - $node->created) , 2));
?>

After

<?php
$ago = t('node.elapsed_time',  array('@time' =>  \Drupal::service('date.formatter')->formatInterval((time() - $node->created) , 2));
?>

PHP code: using format_plural()

Example: Formatting total comment count plural text

Before

<?php
$output = \Drupal::translation()->formatPlural($node->comment_count, '1 comment', '@count comments');
?>

After

<?php
// NOTE: same identifier is supplied as parameter for 2nd and 3rd argument.
$output = \Drupal::translation()->formatPlural($node->comment_count, 'comments.count', 'comments.count');
?>

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Inside a Class

Before

    // ...
    $string = $this->t('Dashboard');
    // ...

After 

    // ...
    $string = $this->t('dashboard.title');
    // ...

Context in Drupal.t() and Drupal.formatPlural()

Before

Drupal.t('May', {}, {context: "Long month name"});

After

Drupal.t('calendar_month.may', {}, {context: "Long month name"});

Translation in Twig templates

Before

{{ 'Hello Earth!'|trans }}
{{ 'Hello Earth!'|t }}
{{ 'Hello @name!'|t({'@name': username}) }}

After

{{ 'welcome.message'|trans }}
{{ 'welcome.message'|t }}
{{ 'dashboard.greetings.short'|t({'@name': username}) }}

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