Intl MessageFormat Parser

Parses ICU Message strings into an AST via JavaScript.

Overview

This package implements a parser in JavaScript that parses the industry standard ICU Message strings — used for internationalization — into an AST. The produced AST can then be used by a compiler, like intl-messageformat, to produce localized formatted strings for display to users.

This parser is written in PEG.js, a parser generator for JavaScript. This parser's implementation was inspired by and derived from Alex Sexton's messageformat.js project. The differences from Alex's implementation are:

This project is standalone.
It's authored as ES6 modules compiled to CommonJS and the Bundle format for the browser.
The produced AST is more descriptive and uses recursive structures.
The keywords used in the AST match the ICU Message "spec".

Usage

Loading in the Browser

The dist/ folder contains the version of this package for use in the browser, and it can be loaded and used like this:

<script src="intl-messageformat-parser/dist/parser.min.js"></script>
<script>
    IntlMessageFormatParser.parse('...');
</script>

Loading in Node.js

This package can also be require()-ed in Node.js:

var parser = require('intl-messageformat-parser');
parser.parse('...');

Example

Given an ICU Message string like this:

On {takenDate, date, short} {name} took {numPhotos, plural,
    =0 {no photos.}
    =1 {one photo.}
    other {# photos.}
}

// Assume `msg` is the string above.
parser.parse(msg);

This parser will produce this AST:

{
    "type": "messageFormatPattern",
    "elements": [
        {
            "type": "messageTextElement",
            "value": "On "
        },
        {
            "type": "argumentElement",
            "id": "takenDate",
            "format": {
                "type": "dateFormat",
                "style": "short"
            }
        },
        {
            "type": "messageTextElement",
            "value": " "
        },
        {
            "type": "argumentElement",
            "id": "name",
            "format": null
        },
        {
            "type": "messageTextElement",
            "value": " took "
        },
        {
            "type": "argumentElement",
            "id": "numPhotos",
            "format": {
                "type": "pluralFormat",
                "offset": 0,
                "options": [
                    {
                        "type": "optionalFormatPattern",
                        "selector": "=0",
                        "value": {
                            "type": "messageFormatPattern",
                            "elements": [
                                {
                                    "type": "messageTextElement",
                                    "value": "no photos."
                                }
                            ]
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "optionalFormatPattern",
                        "selector": "=1",
                        "value": {
                            "type": "messageFormatPattern",
                            "elements": [
                                {
                                    "type": "messageTextElement",
                                    "value": "one photo."
                                }
                            ]
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "optionalFormatPattern",
                        "selector": "other",
                        "value": {
                            "type": "messageFormatPattern",
                            "elements": [
                                {
                                    "type": "messageTextElement",
                                    "value": "# photos."
                                }
                            ]
                        }
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    ]
}

License

This software is free to use under the Yahoo! Inc. BSD license. See the LICENSE file for license text and copyright information.

npm