Translation lookup keys are prefixed by module name

Question

I'm in the process of writing my first module, which is also my first multi-language module. I've created the CSV files for the translation and fed them with an array of sentences I use using

$this->__('...')

in my code. Example:

"Wrong parameters were passed to this function.","Mauvais paramètres ont été passés à cette fonction."

However, trying the code in my development system using multiple URLs (and therefor languages) to access the message in different languages, I came across a strange phenomenon:

First, the text was not translated. I debugged the code and followed the

$this->__('Wrong parameters were passed to this function.')

call down to the lower levels, all the way to

app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Translate.php

in function

translate($args)

on line 387. The translatable text is passed into there. Then, in line 398, the lookup key gets prefixed by the module name, to look like this:

Companyname_Modulename::Wrong parameters were passed to this function.

Naturally, this text cannot be found in the translation table loaded from the CSV file mentioned earlier. The lookup key is missing the company and module name prefix.

Why is it prefixed by the module name? How can I prevent it? I'd prefer not to prefix the texts by the module name, as the module name already is the filename of the CSV file. All tutorials I found on the web never even mentioned this. All expect the key in the translation file to be exactly the parameter to $this->('...').

Edit 1: Our translation files reside as files in our module directory and are symlinked under the names Companyname_Modulename.csv into all applicable language directories (app/locale/de_DE,app/locale/en_US, app/locale/fr_FR).

The translation file configuration in our XML configuration:

    <translate>
        <modules>
            <Companyname_Modulename>
                <files>
                    <default>Companyname_Modulename.csv</default>
                </files>
            </Companyname_Modulename>
        </modules>
    </translate>

Answer 1

First: did you remember to flush/disable the translation cache?

Magento uses the "Module::" prefix to allow you to scope the replacement of translation string tokens on a per-module basis.

Consider the string "Yes", which you may generically wish to replace as "Oui" for a site which uses the fr_FR locale. But let's say that for content which is owned by a specific module Foo_Bar, you may want to translate "Yes" to "Que oui!" - in this case your custom theme translation file (locale/fr_FR/translate.csv) would be:

"Yes","Oui" (actually, this would be handled by the `fr_FR` language pack CSVs in  *`app/locale/fr_FR`*
"Foo_Bar::Yes","Que oui!"

Answer 2

Prefixing is normal and actually very helpful. Let's take "Yes". Normally it exists in Mage_Core.csv as "Yes","Oui" But in your module you want it Capitilized or whatever... take in mind languages that have different words for male and female objects.

So in your module's csv Namaspace_Mymodule.csv you have a line that reads

"Yes","OUI!!!!!!"

Now for the tricky part.

To access this don't use echo $this->__('Yes');

but echo Mage::helper('mymodule')->__('Yes');

This assumes that you have the helper file of your module created and properly registered in your module's config.xml

I think this change will solve your problem in general

Answer 3

Naturally, this text cannot be found in the translation table loaded from the CSV file mentioned earlier. The lookup key is missing the company and module name prefix.

Nothing wrong with that. Magento automatically adds the prefix based on the module name in this configuration if and only if the string to be translated is found in multiple modules:

<translate>
    <modules>
        <Companyname_Modulename>
            <files>
                <default>Companyname_Modulename.csv</default>
            </files>
        </Companyname_Modulename>
    </modules>
</translate>

Since your string occurs only in your custom module, the scope prefix is not necessary to distinguish different translation and is omitted.

If you continue debugging, you will find that in _getTranslatedText() both variations are looked up:

if (array_key_exists($code, $this->getData())) {
    $translated = $this->_data[$code];
}
elseif (array_key_exists($text, $this->getData())) {
    $translated = $this->_data[$text];
}

$code is "Companyname_Modulename::Wrong parameters were passed to this function." and $text is "Wrong parameters were passed to this function."

Conclusion

Wrong assumptions, everything is fine, the error must be somewhere else...

To learn more about the translation system in Magento, read: How to implement translations in design template package CSV's? How does echo $this->__('Text') work?