I18n.t with the argument ending with a dot

rubyonrails-talk
1

I have an enum database column (let’s say it’s Foo#color) that can be NULL. My website is for non-English speakers (let’s say Spanish), so enums must be translated. So, I wrote es.yml like this:

es:
  foo:
    color:
      red: rojo
      blue: azul
      green: verde

(Of course, this yml is VERY simplified.)

Now I want to write the translation by I18n.t("foo.color.#{foo.color}"). It shows rojo for :red, azul for :blue, and verde for :green. Everything looks working… Until the color is NULL. Now I get the entire hash: { :red => "rojo", :blue => "azul", :green => "verde" }. So I have to add code for checking if the color is NULL.

This problem disappears if Rails did this:

  • If the argument of I18n.t does not end in a dot (like I18n.t("foo.color")), it returns the hash, as the current Rails does.
  • If the argument of I18n.t ends in a dot (like I18n.t("foo.color."), which is generated when the color is NULL), it simply returns an empty string.

Why did they decide not do this? Is there any benefit in not doing this despite this inconvenience?

2 
I18n.t("foo.color.#{foo.color.presence || "red"})

Other options would be to ensure color cannot be null.