van.potomo 2.0

Purpose

This package integrates pure-python gettext translation compilation (msgfmt) into the setup.py “build” and “develop” commands.

These commands are extended so that every “data file” identified by setuptools with the .po extension is compiled to a .mo file in the same directory as the .po file.

This integrates very well if you use z3c.recipe.i18n (and hopefully others as well) to manage .po files.

Usage

You need to override the “build” and “develop” commands in your setup.py, for example:

from setuptools import setup, find_packages
from van.potomo import develop, build

setup(
    name = "HelloWorld",
    cmdclass={'build': build,
              'develop': develop},
    setup_requires=["van.potomo"],
    version = "0.1",
    packages = find_packages(),
)

Why

This package exists because the author believes that:

• Compiled translations should not be stored under revision control, they are not source

• Compiled translations should not be distributed in tarballs, they are not source

• Compiled translations should not be “lazily compiled” unless you take into account that filesystems on production machines are often read-only.

• The process of compiling translations should not require an extra step/options during the build/install or build/develop cycle.

The options available at the time offered all of this:

• Babel: Not integrated into the “build” distutils command.

• cc.gettext: Depends on buildout, not useful for deployments by other means.

• zope.i18n lazy compilation: Very nice for development, but not on some production environments.

Caveats

van.potomo makes your setup.py depend on van.potomo. But outside tools cannot tell this because they need to run the setup.py to figure out the dependencies.

Basically this means your developers/users will need to install van.potomo manually before anything else. If anyone knows a robust/good way to get around this limitation, please let the author know.

Changes