i18n Pluralization

Question

I want to be able to translate pluralized strings in i18n in rails. A string can be :

You have 2 kids 

or

You have 1 kid 

I know that I can use pluralize helper method, but I want to embed this in i18n translations so that I don't have to mess up with my views at any point in the future. I read that :count is somehow used in translations for plural, but I can't find any real resources on how it gets implemented.

Notice that I know that I can pass a variable in a translation string. I also tried something like :

<%= t 'misc.kids', :kids_num => pluralize(1, 'kid') %> 

Which works fine, but has a fundamental problem of the same idea. I need to specify the string 'kid' in the pluralize helper. I don't want to do that because it will lead to view problems in the future. Instead I want to keep everything in the translation and nothing in the view.

How can I do that ?

Answer 1

Try this:

en.yml :

en:   misc:     kids:       zero: no kids       one: 1 kid       other: %{count} kids 

In a view:

You have <%= t('misc.kids', :count => 4) %> 

---

Updated answer for languages with multiple pluralization (tested with Rails 3.0.7):

File config/initializers/pluralization.rb:

require "i18n/backend/pluralization"  I18n::Backend::Simple.send(:include, I18n::Backend::Pluralization) 

File config/locales/plurals.rb:

{:ru =>    { :i18n =>      { :plural =>        { :keys => [:one, :few, :other],         :rule => lambda { |n|            if n == 1             :one           else             if [2, 3, 4].include?(n % 10) &&                 ![12, 13, 14].include?(n % 100) &&                 ![22, 23, 24].include?(n % 100)                :few              else               :other              end           end         }        }      }    }  }  #More rules in this file: https://github.com/svenfuchs/i18n/blob/master/test/test_data/locales/plurals.rb #(copy the file into `config/locales`) 

File config/locales/en.yml:

en:   kids:     zero: en_zero     one: en_one     other: en_other 

File config/locales/ru.yml:

ru:   kids:     zero: ru_zero     one: ru_one     few: ru_few     other: ru_other 

Test:

$ rails c >> I18n.translate :kids, :count => 1 => "en_one" >> I18n.translate :kids, :count => 3 => "en_other" >> I18n.locale = :ru => :ru >> I18n.translate :kids, :count => 1 => "ru_one" >> I18n.translate :kids, :count => 3 => "ru_few"  #works! yay!  >> I18n.translate :kids, :count => 5 => "ru_other"  #works! yay!