How to make localization on months / days for D3js?

Question

I am looking for a way to do localization on D3

I have found the values

d3_time_days = [ "Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday" ],
d3_time_dayAbbreviations = [ "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat" ], 
d3_time_months = [ "January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December" ], 
d3_time_monthAbbreviations = [ "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec" ];

inside D3 but as they are local/privat to D3 i (obviously) cant access them.

Any hints would be great, thanks :)

---

Update 1:

Seems only a recompile can do the magic - but can't be boughtered - so ended up hard coding the edits in the minified version - shame on me...

---

Update 2:

Will try to look into how to make D3 accept an "on the fly" localization setting like fx moment.js does it:

moment.lang('da', {
    months : "Januar_Februar_Marts_April_Maj_Juni_Juli_August_September_Oktober_November_December".split("_"),
    monthsShort : "Jan_Feb_Mar_Apr_Maj_Jun_Jul_Aug_Sep_Okt_Nov_Dec".split("_"),
    weekdays : "Søndag_Mandag_Tirsdag_Onsdag_Torsdag_Fredag_Lørdag".split("_"),
    weekdaysShort : "Søn_Man_Tir_Ons_Tor_Fre_Lør".split("_"),
    weekdaysMin : "Sø_Ma_Ti_On_To_Fr_Lø".split("_"),
    ordinal : '%d.',
    week : {
        dow : 1, // Monday is the first day of the week.
        doy : 4  // The week that contains Jan 4th is the first week of the year.
    }
});

Answer 1

I just had the same issue, and I found the way to fix it without recompiling d3.

https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Localization

The documentation mentions the function d3.locale, this one builds the functions used for formatting numbers and dates. So if you call it with your own localization rules, you're half way there.

var myFormatters = d3.locale({
  "decimal": ".",
  "thousands": ",",
  "grouping": [3],
  "currency": ["$", ""],
  "dateTime": "%a %b %e %X %Y",
  "date": "%m/%d/%Y",
  "time": "%H:%M:%S",
  "periods": ["AM", "PM"],
  "days": ["Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday"],
  "shortDays": ["Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat"],
  "months": ["Enero", "Febrero", "Marzo", "Abril", "Mayo", "Junio", "Julio", "Agosto", "Septiembre", "Octubre", "Noviembre", "Diciembre"],
  "shortMonths": ["Ene", "Feb", "Mar", "Abr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Ago", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dic"]
});

The next step is to actually tell d3 to use this new formatting functions. So for using the new time formatter do this:

d3.time.format = myFormatters.timeFormat;

Answer 2

Just thought I'd add to @Adrian Salazar's answer as it took me a while to get it right. If you're doing an axis with 'out-of-the-box' d3 time scale. You can set it to the locale with timeFormat.multi

var localeFormatter = d3.locale({
    "decimal": ",",
    "thousands": ".",
    "grouping": [3],
    "currency": ["€", ""],
    "dateTime": "%a %b %e %X %Y",
    "date": "%d-%m-%Y",
    "time": "%H:%M:%S",
    "periods": ["AM", "PM"],
    "days": ["Zondag", "Maandag", "Dinsdag", "Woensdag", "Donderdag", "Vrijdag", "Zaterdag"],
    "shortDays": ["Zo", "Ma", "Di", "Wo", "Do", "Vr", "Za"],
    "months": ["Januari", "Februari", "Maart", "April", "Mei", "Juni", "Juli", "Augustus", "September", "Oktober", "November", "December"],
    "shortMonths": ["Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "Mei", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Okt", "Nov", "Dec"]
})

var tickFormat = localeFormatter.timeFormat.multi([
    ["%H:%M", function(d) { return d.getMinutes(); }],
    ["%H:%M", function(d) { return d.getHours(); }],
    ["%a %d", function(d) { return d.getDay() && d.getDate() != 1; }],
    ["%b %d", function(d) { return d.getDate() != 1; }],
    ["%B", function(d) { return d.getMonth(); }],
    ["%Y", function() { return true; }]
]);

axis.tickFormat(tickFormat);