Translate Java, INI, Fluent and PHP files

Four resource formats share this page because they share the same promise: keys and structure stay as written, and only the values change. Each is accepted up to 4 MB. Each has its own quoting and placeholder rules, listed below. All four hold one language per file.

Java properties (.properties)

Keys, the separator (= or :), comments and blank lines come back as written. MessageFormat placeholders such as {0} and {0,number,currency} are kept with their index and format type. The bundle is read and written as UTF-8: save an old ISO-8859-1 bundle as UTF-8 first. A value continued on the next line with a trailing backslash is not supported yet, and only the first line of it is translated, so put each value on one line before you upload.

INI, Joomla, Inno Setup and .lang (.ini, .isl, .lang)

Keys, [sections], comments and quoting stay as written. The file is rewritten line by line, so a line you did not need translated comes back byte for byte. A quoted value stays quoted, and a quote inside a translation is escaped the way that line already escaped it, including Joomla’s "_QQ_". Unquoted values are written literally, because in Inno Setup a quote would become part of the text. An INI value is one line: a line break in a translation becomes a space. A file that is not UTF-8 (Inno Setup files are often Windows-1252) is refused rather than converted, so save it as UTF-8 first.

Fluent (.ftl)

Used by Firefox, Thunderbird and many apps. Message ids, attribute names and term names come back exactly as sent. Variables such as { $count } are protected, and every plural or select variant ([one], *[other]) is translated as its own string while the variant keys never change. The file is not reformatted: each translation is written where the original text was. A literal brace, or a line starting with [, * or a dot, is escaped so the file stays valid.

PHP language files (.php)

For Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter and PrestaShop language files: a return [ ... ] or array( ... ) of messages, $lang[...] assignments and $_MODULE strings. Only plain string values change. Array keys, function arguments, concatenations, heredocs and any other code come back exactly as they were, and each string keeps its own quoting. Placeholders such as :attribute, {field}, %s and $name are kept. A PHP file that is not a language file is refused rather than guessed at: AI Glot does not translate code. A Laravel plural such as "one apple|:count apples" is one plain string, so check the number of forms your language needs in the result.

Good to know

• One target language per upload for all four formats. If you ask for two, the plan translates one and says so. Run the file once per language: your glossary carries over, so the German file uses the same terms as the French one.
• Several files at once. Put a lang folder in a ZIP to translate it in one job.
• Output filter. Not available for these formats: the whole file comes back.
• Ceiling. 4 MB for all four.

Related

• YAML and TOML, JSON and gettext PO for other locale formats.
• All file formats