notes.textile

Stopped DB Backend in the middle, here’s where we left off:

Some Notes

• Started doing the migration generator in generators/db_backend.rb
• Translation keys will be in dotted string format
• Question: Do we need a plural_key column, or can we build it in to the dotted key?
• We will probably have to code the following methods from scratch, to optimize db calls:
  • translate
  • localize
  • pluralize
• We should refactor interpolation code so that it can be included into backend code without inheriting SimpleBackend
  • Rationale: interpolation is something done entirely after a string is fetched from the data store
  • Alternately, it could be done from within the I18n module

Schema

There will be two db tables.

1. globalize_translations will have: locale, key, translation, created_at, updated_at.
2. globalize_translations_map will have: key, translation_id.

globalize_translations_map will let us easily fetch entire sub-trees of namespaces.
However, this table may not be necessary, as it may be feasible to just use key LIKE “some.namespace.%”.

Caching

We’ll almost certainly want to implement caching in the backend. Should probably be a customized
implementation based on the Rails caching mechanism, to support memcached, etc.

Queries

We’ll want to pull in lots of stuff at once and return a single translation based on some
quick Ruby selection. The query will look something like this:

SELECT * FROM globalize_translations
WHERE locale in (<fallbacks>) AND
key IN (key, default_key)

The Ruby code would then pick the first translation that satisfies a fallback, in fallback order.
Of course, the records with the supplied key would take precedence of those with the default key.

Misc

We should revisit the :zero plural code. On the one hand it’s certainly useful for
many apps in many languages. On the other hand it’s not mentioned in CLDR, and not a real
concept in language pluralization. Right now, I’m feeling it’s still a good idea to keep it in.