Rails nested models error translation

Question

I have problem translating error messages for nested models.

Lets say we have a parent class Foo which accepts attributes for Bar:

class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :bars

  accepts_nested_attributes_for :bars
  validates_associated :bars
end

class Bar < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :foo

  validates :a, presence: true
end

If I create a Foo with an invalid Bar, it validates bars (notice the plural name bars in the error messages):

foo = Foo.new(bars_attributes: [b: 'something'])
foo.valid?
foo.errors.messages
=> {:"bars.a"=>["must be present"] }

When this is translated, I18n seems to be looking for the translations for the association name (bars in plural) instead of the singular model name (bar) in the translation file (the Swedish one for instance) config/local/sv:

sv:
  activerecord:
    attributes:
      bar:
        a: 'The normal place for the translation'
      bars:
        a: 'The place where I18n is using when nested with Foo'

Obviously I do not want to state my translations twice, I want to get rid of the two last lines in the config.

Why is I18n using the association name when looking for translation for the nested model? Am I missing something?

Answer 1

I'm not sure the usage of association name can be helped. But i can offer you a partial solution:

sv:
  activerecord:
    attributes:
      bar: &bar
        a: 'The normal place for the translation'
      bars: *bar

EDIT: The &identifier sets up the anchor referencing the preceding hash, while *identifier allows you to reference that anchor. In this scenario, the "*bar" reference will take the "bar" underlying structure and include it into "bars".

Take a look at this quick guide: http://rhnh.net/2011/01/31/yaml-tutorial Of course, you're also welcome to try the elaborate YAML docs or this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML