[Grok-dev] Use grok/zope i18 translation mechanisms in external non grok/zope application

[Hector Blanco]

Hello everyone.

I have a web server (called "my_server", of class
"my_server.app.My_server") that is properly using the i18 translation
features implemented in Grok. I followed this guide:
http://grok.zope.org/documentation/how-to/how-to-internationalize-your-application
and the translations are working very well when "inside" the server.

Now, I have another Python application that is non-related to this
Grok/Zope server (it just uses its ZoDB for persistence and as a
"common storage" area) which could actually benefit from the
translation infrastructure provided by Grok/Zope.

Is there any way of accessing my server's translations from an
external application? Said external application is executed via an
script generated as an "entry point" of the "my_server" package. I can
actually invoke the script with "my_server/bin/myStartupScript" so at
least the paths used for the "my_server" application, like
$HOME/.buildout/ and all that should be available (thanks to Kevin
Teague for the hint he gave me on that a while ago
http://python.6.n6.nabble.com/Get-grok-site-outside-the-server-in-an-external-script-tp1931799p1931801.html).

The closest thing I've been able to do is loading the catalogs and
translate through them:

>>> catalog = zope.i18n.gettextmessagecatalog.GettextMessageCatalog("zh", "zope-i18n", "/home/yomismo/my_server/src/my_server/locales/zh/LC_MESSAGES/my_server.mo")
>>> print catalog.getMessage("Next Step")
下一步

This works, and I could always use this as a fallback, but I would
like to be able to call "translate" and get the translations as I can
do when the "my_server" application is running:

>>> zope.i18n.translate(u"Next Step", domain="zope-i18n", context=None, mapping=None, target_language="zh", default=None)
u'Next Step'

This doesn't work. I've tried many variations...
>>> zope.i18n.translate(u"Next Step", domain="my_server", context=None, mapping=None, target_language="zh", default=None)
>>> zope.i18n.translate(u"Next Step", domain="my_server", context=app.My_server, mapping=None, target_language="zh", default=None)

... all of them without luck ...

I am attaching my
"/home/yomismo/my_server/src/my_server/configure.zcml", just in case
it helps, but it looks pretty generic to me:

<configure xmlns="http://namespaces.zope.org/zope"
		           xmlns:grok="http://namespaces.zope.org/grok"
		           xmlns:i18n="http://namespaces.zope.org/i18n"
		           i18n_domain="my_server">
	  <include package="grok" />
	  <include package="zope.i18n" />
	  <includeDependencies package="." />
	  <grok:grok package="." />
	  <grok:grok package="backlib.utils.languagePreferences.PreferredLanguage" />
	  <i18n:registerTranslations directory="locales" />
</configure>

(The PreferredLanguage is the application that returns the language
the user prefers. It basically reads a cookie from the HTTPRequest)

My only guess (which is probably wrong) is that when I start the
server (with "my_server/bin/paster") something gets registered or read
or... something and this doesn't happen when the translation is called
from an outside script.

Any hint will be appreciated!

Thank you in advance.