Rails routes with optional scope ":locale"

Question

I'm working on a Rails 3.1 app and I'd like to set specific routes for the different languages the app is going to support.

/es/countries
/de/countries
…

For the default language ('en'), I don't want the locale to be displayed in the url.

/countries

Here is the route definition I've set.

scope "(:locale)", :locale => /es|de/ do
   resources :countries
end

It works great, until I try to use a path helper with 'en' as the locale.

In the console :

app.countries_path(:locale => 'fr')
 => "/fr/countries" 

app.countries_path(:locale => 'en')
 => "/countries?locale=en" 

I don't want the "?locale=en".

Is there a way to tell rails that with an 'en' locale, the locale param should not be added to the url?

Thanks

Hotchkiss

Your question answered my question more than your answer did. Parentheses around the :locale. Thanks, that's what I was looking for. – Emsmus

Answer 1

I finally figured out how to do it easily. You just have to set the default_url_options in the app controller as below.

  def default_url_options(options={})
    { :locale => I18n.locale == I18n.default_locale ? nil : I18n.locale  }
  end

This way, you are sure the locale isn't sent to the path helpers.

Hotchkiss

or set the default in the scope definition: scope "(:locale)", locale: /en|es/, defaults: {locale: "en"} do – Pectoralis

unfortunately this is overriding the other locales – Easter

perfect! no need defaults in routes – Devilry

Answer 2

This SHOULD be a better solution:

In your routes.rb,

scope "(:locale)", locale: /#{I18n.available_locales.join("|")}/, defaults: {locale: "en"} do

As MegaTux said, set defaults: {locale: "en"} in the scope.

The advantage: The jlfenaux solution works in most contexts, but not all. In certain contexts (like basically anything outside of your main controllers and views), the path helpers will get confused and put the object or object.id in the locale parameter, which will cause errors. You'll find yourself putting locale: nil in lots of path helpers to avoid those errors.

The possible problem: It seems that defaults: {locale: "en"} always overrides any other value you pass in for locale. The option is named default, so I'd expect it to assign locale to 'en' only when there's no value already, but that's not what happens. Anyone else experiencing this?

Emsmus

I have the same Problem. – Maggio

Yes, same issue. It always takes en as default – Omor

Yep. Same issue. Can someone solve this disadvantage? – Easter

I'm not sure about not displaying en in the url like the question asks - but I found this answer helpful, but realised all my links, even when the UI language was not English, had English as their locale. so I had to set the default locale as jifenaux did it in the accepted answer rather than as this answer shows it done inside the routes file – Barquentine

Be sure to use strings! – Halfback

@Halfback Using string as keys in the defaults hash works for the default but it introduces another issue, link helpers will suddenly have both a string and a symbol with the same name and it gets confused. No route matches {... "muh"=>"xlm", :muh=>"xlx" ...} – Cellulous

Answer 3

I'm doing a combination of what @Arcolye and @jifenaux are doing, plus something extra to keep the code as DRY as possible. It might not be suitable for everybody, but in my case, whenever I want to support a new locale I also have to create a new .yml file in config/locales/ anyways, so this is how it works best for me.

config/application.rb:

locale_files = Dir["#{Rails.root}/config/locales/??.yml"]

config.i18n.available_locales = locale_files.map do |d| 
  d.split('/').last.split('.').first
end

config.i18n.default_locale = :en

config/routes.rb

root_path = 'pages#welcome'

scope '(:locale)', locale: /#{I18n.available_locales.join('|')}/ do
  # ...
end

root to: root_path
get '/:locale', to: root_path

app/controllers/application_controller.rb:

private

def default_url_options(options = {})
  if I18n.default_locale != I18n.locale
    {locale: I18n.locale}.merge options
  else
    {locale: nil}.merge options
  end
end

Feculent

you can put the root_path into the locale scope and don't need the get route anymore – Sherman

Answer 4

If you don't want the query string you don't have to pass it to the helper:

1.9.2 (main):0 > app.countries_path(:locale=>:de)
=> "/de/countries"
1.9.2 (main):0 > app.countries_path
=> "/countries"
1.9.2 (main):0 > app.countries_path(:locale=>:en)
=> "/countries?locale=en"
1.9.2 (main):0 > app.countries_path
=> "/countries"
1.9.2 (main):0 > app.countries_path(:locale=>nil)
=> "/countries"

Walkin

I'm aware of that. But the code I use in my views are designed for all locales, so I have to pass it to the helper. I'd rather not test each time if the local is en... – Hotchkiss

Answer 5

In my case I solved this problem using this technique:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  layout -> {
    if devise_controller?
      'devise'
    end
  }

  before_action :set_locale

  def set_locale
     I18n.locale = params[:locale] || I18n.default_locale
  end

  def url_options
    { :locale => I18n.locale }.merge(super)
  end

end

Isolde

Can you elaborate what is this layout? – Piper

Answer 6

If you decide to put default_url_options in the application_controller to fix your path helpers, keep in mind you might want to put it in your admin's application_contoller as well

Corroboree