{"id":7089,"date":"2015-10-04T22:41:27","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T02:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.useragentman.com\/blog\/?p=7089"},"modified":"2015-10-04T23:29:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T03:29:46","slug":"fixing-badly-formatted-properties-files-and-using-libreoffice-excel-to-make-them-translator-friendly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.useragentman.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/04\/fixing-badly-formatted-properties-files-and-using-libreoffice-excel-to-make-them-translator-friendly\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing Badly Formatted .properties Files and Using LibreOffice\/Excel to Make Them Translator Friendly."},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"manure-pit\"
Image Credit, boni_face<\/a><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

For those unfamiliar with them, .properties<\/code> files<\/a> are configuration files for Java.<\/strong> Among other things, one of their major uses are multi-language support in JSP pages. They are, however, not just restricted to Java — libraries exist for JavaScript<\/a>, Ruby<\/a>, Perl<\/a>, Flex<\/a> and a whole slew of other languages.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So many times, in my many dives into the Java world, I come across badly managed .properties<\/code> files. In a mulit-developer shop, things quickly change from this:<\/p>\n

\n
\r\naccount.security.check = V\u00e9rification de s\u00e9curit\u00e9\r\naccount.not.available = Pas s\u00e9lectionn\u00e9\r\naccount.confirmation.password.updated = Votre mot de passe a \u00e9t\u00e9 mis \u00e0 jour.\r\nsearch.empty.message = Nous n\u2019avons pas trouv\u00e9 de r\u00e9sultats pour {0}\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
to this:<\/p>\n
\n
\r\naccount.security.check                 = V\\u00e9rification de s\\u00e9curit\\u00e9\r\naccount.not.available=        Pas s&eacute;lectionn&eacute;\r\naccount.confirmation.password.updated       =         Votre mot de passe a \u00e9t\u00e9 mis &#224; jour.\r\nsearch.empty.message    = Nous n\\u2019avons pas trouv\u00e9 de r\u00e9sultats pour {0}\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Furthermore, you don’t want to give a .properties<\/code> file to a translator.  To a non-developer, they are quite unfriendly and, in my experience, translators will get confused and uncomfortable using them.<\/strong>  In this article, you’ll see how you can quickly fix these issues with z4n<\/code><\/a> a set of shell scripts I created to manage .properties<\/code> files<\/strong> and includes tools for developers to extract translation data from Excel spreadsheets.<\/strong> Read on, and I’ll show you how to keep .properites<\/code> files sane for all your web projects.<\/p>\n
Download z4n to manage your .properties files from GitHub<\/a><\/p>\n
How To Fix Badly Formatted\/Managed .properties Files<\/h2>\n
In a large development shop, these files may start off well organized, but over time they become a rat’s nest of awful (as shown above).  The example above shows how some developers like to use numeric entities<\/a>, while some other use named entities<\/a> and still others use ‘\\u’-escaped Unicode characters<\/a>.  Furthermore, it seems that some developer like to add spaces at random around the equals sign that separates the key and the value.<\/p>\n
This has happened so many times in my career, which is why z4n<\/code> has removeEntitiesInProp<\/code> to prettify .properties<\/code> file by converting everything to UTF-8 (as God intended all modern web applications to use) and standardizing the spacing around the = symbol. In seconds, you .properties files will no longer make your eyes bleed and want to go through git blame to see who messed up everything.<\/p>\n
How To Make Them More Translator Friendly<\/h1>\n
z4n<\/code>‘s xls2prop<\/code> command is my favourite part of this package, though.  With it, you can give your translation department a nice Excel file like this:<\/p>\n
\"before\"<\/p>\n
They can fill it out like this:<\/p>\n
\"after\"<\/p>\n
Then you can run xls2prop<\/code> and you can get nicely formatted results for languages like Russian … :<\/p>\n
\n
\r\nform.header.name = \u0418\u043c\u044f\r\nform.header.address = \u0410\u0434\u0440\u0435\u0441\r\nform.header.postalcode = \u041f\u043e\u0447\u0442\u043e\u0432\u044b\u0439 \u0438\u043d\u0434\u0435\u043a\u0441\r\nform.header.city = \u0413\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0434\r\nform.header.province = \u041e\u0431\u043b\u0430\u0441\u0442\u044c\r\nform.header.country = \u0421\u0442\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0430\r\nregistration.intro.copy = \u041f\u043e\u0436\u0430\u043b\u0443\u0439\u0441\u0442\u0430, \u0437\u0430\u043f\u043e\u043b\u043d\u0438\u0442\u0435 \u0444\u043e\u0440\u043c\u0443 \u043d\u0438\u0436\u0435.\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
… and even Japanese:<\/p>\n
\n
\r\nform.header.name = \u540d\u524d\r\nform.header.address = \u4f4f\u6240\r\nform.header.postalcode = \u90f5\u4fbf\u756a\u53f7\r\nform.header.city = \u90fd\u5e02\r\nform.header.province = \u770c\r\nform.header.country = \u56fd\r\nregistration.intro.copy = \u4e0b\u8a18\u306e\u30d5\u30a9\u30fc\u30e0\u306b\u5fc5\u8981\u4e8b\u9805\u3092\u8a18\u5165\u3057\u3066\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Notes and Caveats<\/h2>\n