Answering in another language

Jev takes a query in any language, so a query written in French is a query this checks. Two things have to follow it: the words the tool prints, and the words the checks match against. Only the second can turn a clean query into a finding.

English ships. Nothing else does yet, and a locale with no file is answered in English.

Choosing a locale

--lang=<locale> on any command, or JEVLINT_LANG, then LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANG, in that order. A tag falls back a step at a time, so fr_CA reaches fr before it reaches English, and C or POSIX names no language and is read as none.

Adding one

A locale is one file of key to pattern, named for the tag. In the PHP package it is PHP:

<?php // fr.php

return [
    'report.nothing_to_report' => 'Rien à signaler.',
    'skipped.jev_not_asked' => 'Jev n\'a pas été interrogé, donc {count, plural, one {# vérification n\'a} other {# vérifications n\'ont}} pas été exécutée{count, plural, one {} other {s}}.',
];

In the JavaScript and Python packages it is JSON, because a file dropped into a directory at run time is data: it cannot be a module the build compiled, and importing it would run it:

{
  "report.nothing_to_report": "Rien à signaler.",
  "skipped.jev_not_asked": "Jev n'a pas été interrogé, donc {count, plural, one {# vérification n'a} other {# vérifications n'ont}} pas été exécutée{count, plural, one {} other {s}}."
}

Point JEVLINT_LANG_DIR at the directory holding it; the PHP package also reads php/lang/, where English ships. That directory is read before the shipped messages and does not replace them, so a directory holding only fr.php is a translation and English is still found behind it. A locale needs only the keys it translates; anything absent is read from English, so a part-finished file prints English and never a key. php/lang/en.php, js/src/lang/en.ts and python/src/jevlint/lang/en.py are the list to work from, and they hold the same keys and the same patterns.

Patterns are ICU MessageFormat, so a plural is chosen by the locale's own CLDR rules instead of by a rule written in code. English takes two forms and Polish four, and the pattern names which:

'{count, plural, one {# sprawdzenie} few {# sprawdzenia} many {# sprawdzeń} other {# sprawdzenia}}'

A literal { or } is quoted with apostrophes, and a run of them is quoted together: '{' gives one brace and '}}' gives two. Quoting them one at a time puts '' in the middle, which ICU reads as a literal apostrophe. A lone apostrophe before an ordinary letter is already literal, so the SDK's needs nothing.

Two tests in each package hold the file to its job: every pattern has to parse and leave no argument unfilled, and every key the source asks for has to exist. A third compares the formatters against each other over every shipped pattern, because a plural chosen one way in one implementation and another way in the next is three tools with one name.

What a check reports about your query

A check's title, message, hint and suggest live in the catalogue, not in a language directory, because the catalogue is not PHP, not JavaScript and not Python, and all three implementations read the same file. They are translated in checks/lang/<locale>.json, keyed by check id:

{
  "choice/no-fallback": {
    "title": "Le Choice n'a pas d'option de repli",
    "suggest": "Ajoutez `\"autre\": \"Tout ce que les autres options ne couvrent pas\"`."
  }
}

JEVLINT_CHECKS_DIR covers this file too, in a lang/ beside catalogue.json.

The question a model check puts to Jev is never translated. It is what the check measures, and every figure in Evidence was taken with the wording in the catalogue; a translated question is a different check with the same id and no measurements. docs, trigger and the check id are left alone for the same kind of reason. A test asserts a translation cannot reach question.

The words a check matches against

This is the half that changes findings instead of wording. Three lists are language data, not display text:

A French Choice offering autre has a catch-all. Against the English list alone, choice/no-fallback fires on it and tells you to add the option that is already there. With words.fallback_labels translated, it clears.

The locale's list and English are both read. A query written in French can still name its options in English, and a check given only the French list would stop finding those.

Instructions are normalised with \p{L} and a Unicode-aware lower-case instead of [a-z], so an accented word survives instead of being cut into the pieces between its accents.