Nii is an internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) solution for Ruby. It is modular, comprehensive, fast, and built on top of modern standards and best practices.

With Nii, you can manage translations, localize any Ruby object, all with an easy to use, powerful configuration setup. It includes out of the box support for 233 languages, with 1531 language variants.

Nii manages your application's translated content. Similar solutions include Ruby I18n, R18n, gettext, and FastGettext.

locales/en/example.ftl (localization for English, using Fluent):

hello-world = Hello World!

greeting =
  { NOW() -> 
    [morning]   Good morning, {$name}!
    [afternoon] Good afternoon, {$name}!
    [night]     Good night, {$name}!
   *[other]     Good day to you!
  }

example.rb:

# Load translations from "locales" directory
config = Nii["locales", namespace: :example]

# Create a new context for Englisch
context = Nii::Context.new(:en, config)
context.render "hello-world"                # => "Hello World!"
context.render :greeting, { name: "Maria" } # => "Good morning, Maria!" (depending on time of day)

• Load translations from the local file system. Supports a range of directory structures and naming conventions.
• Load translations from an inline definition.
• Load translations from a database. A wide range of databases is supported. Nii can also reuse an existing Active Record or Sequel connection or connection pool.
• Load translations from multiple sources.
• Translations are grouped in namespaces for content isolation.
• Support for reusable terms and translation attributes.
• Load translations from a custom backend.
• Support for a wide variety of file formats, including Fluent, Gettext, YAML, JSON, TOML, XLIFF, Java/Mozilla properties files and more.
• Ability to convert between file formats. Useful if developers work with different formats than translators, or to import translations.
• Automatically load new translations and reload updated translations in development mode. It will only reload updated files.
• Advanced support for various grammatical rules, including plural categories (cardinal/ordinal/ranges, full support for all CLDR conditions), cases, genders, definiteness, T-V distinction (formal vs informal pronouns).
• Directly load translations from Ruby I18n or R18n into Nii.
• Use Nii as a backend for Ruby I18n.
• Built-in support for HTML formatting, sanitizing, and escaping (compatible with Active Support).
• Support for positional and named arguments, which can be provided ad hoc and/or predefined.
• Comes with a library of template functions for more flexible translations.
• Script and directionality aware string constructions, with automatic support for bidirectional text, with embedded UTF-8 markers or HTML tags.
• Differentiates between language inheritance and fallbacks, to avoid mixed language content.

Nii converts various Ruby objects into human readable, well formatted, localized strings. Similar solutions include TwitterCldr and Active Support.

# Create a context for English
nii = Nii::Context.new "en" # => #<Nii::Context:en-US>

# Formatting various objects
nii.format 9.99, style: :currency            # => "$9.99"
nii.format Nii::Territory["US"]              # => "United States"
nii.format ["de", "fr", "it"], as: :language # => "German, French, and Italian"

# Spelling out numbers (and other objects)
nii.spellout 2020                 # => "two thousand twenty"
nii.spellout 2020, rule: :year    # => "twenty twenty"
nii.spellout 115,  rule: :ordinal # => "one hundred fifteenth"

# Proper HTML interpolation
values = ["<foo>", "<bar>"]
result = nii.format(values) { nii.html "<b>?</b>", _1 }
result            # => "<b>&lt;foo&gt;</b> and <b>&lt;bar&gt;</b>"
result.html_safe? # => true

# Using RubyMoney
require "money"
price = Money.eur 15_00
nii.format   price # => "€15.00"
nii.spellout price # => "fifteen euros"

• Format numeric values with smart defaults and a high level of customizability.
  • Localized symbols, delimiters, and separators.
  • Localized delimiter and separator position (numbers in Indian English and other languages are formatted correctly).
  • Fine-grained control over precision, rounding, sign display, etc.
  • Support for Unicode style decimal formatting patterns (subset of Excel/Google decimal patterns).
  • Support for Unicode Rule Based Number Formats (RBNF).
  • Support for multiple formatting styles (default, decimal, currency, precent, or unit).
  • ECMAScript API compatibility (you can use the same formatting rules server-side that you use in your client-side JavaScript code).
  • Support for various numbering systems, including decimal systems (Latin, Arab, etc), and non-decimal systems (like Traditional Chinese Numerals). You can directly specify a different numbering system, or have Nii pick the appropriate default, native, traditional, or financial numbering system for the given locale.
• Format money objects, compatible with RubyMoney, shopify-money, custom Money classes, as well as directly from numeric values (if you provide a currency or style option).
  • Localized currency symbols and names (AS$ vs $).
  • Localized currency position and spacing rules.
  • Handles unknown currencies well (example: falls back to RubyMoney currency information for BTC, which is not included in the CLDR).
  • Ability to round to valid cash amount (for currencies that don't have a single cent/fraction coin or bill).
• Format Arrays as lists.
  • Support different styles (and/or/unit, each also as short or narrow).
  • Provide formatting options applied to all elements.
  • Dynamically format elements in the list (useful for injecting markup).
  • Support complex localization rules (languages like Spanish, Hebrew, and Luxembourgish use different words or spellings for "and" depending on the list elements).
  • Properly handle bidirectional content (for example, Arabic words listed in English).
• Format Hashes as localized key-value list.
• Built-in formatters for popular gems.
  • Active Support: Duration, TimeZone, TimeWithZone.
  • Concurrent Ruby: Array, Hash, Map, Set, Tuple.
  • TZinfo: Timezone, Timestamp, Country.
  • Nii: Calendar, Date, DayPeriod, Locale, NumberingSystem, Territory, Timezone, Timezone::Meta, Units (as part of nii-units).
  • RubyMoney, shopify-money.
• Format Date, Time, and DateTime.
  • Support alternative calendars (anything besides Gregorian requires nii-calendars gem).
  • Determine localized day period ("afternoon" has a different meaning based on language and location).
• Format strings and symbols.
  • Turn identifiers into localized names for calendar systems, collation algorithms, currencies, day periods, keys, languages, measurement systems, countries and territories, scripts, units, and variants.
  • Format strings as if they were numbers.
• Spell out numbers and money objects as words and phrases.
  • Supports multiple spelling rules per language to handle cardinal and ordinal numbers, as well as cases, genders and other grammatical aspects.
• Partially format and re-format values (useful for setting default formatting rules for variable passed to dynamic translations).
• Add custom formatters for your own Ruby objects.

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Nii is licensed under an MIT License. It also includes modified versions of the CLDR data files, which are licensed under a Unicode license.