ZanyBlue.Text is an Ada package supporting localization support in Ada by allowing the externalization of application messages into a properties file which can be localized into additional languages, similar to Java. The localized files include the locale string in the file name, e.g., the file "zbmcompile.properties" is localized to "zbmcompile_fr.properties" in French.

• A language abbreviation (2 or 3 alpha-numeric characters), e.g., "en" for English, "zh" for Chinese, "cop" for Coptic, etc.
• A script abbreviation (4 alpha-numeric characters), e.g., "Latn" for Latin, "Hant" for Traditional Han, "Hebr" for Hebrew, etc.
• A territory abbreviation (2 or 3 alpha-numeric characters), e.g., "US" for US, "CN" for China, "142" for Asia, etc.

All components are optional, giving locale strings "" for the base locale, "en" for English, "zh_Hant" for Traditional Chinese, "zh_TW" for Chinese in Taiwan (also Traditional Chinese), and "zh_Hant_TW".

The externalized .properties files are compiled to an Ada package containing the application strings (including localized strings) to be compiled into an application. The selection of locale by ZanyBlue.Text is based on a locale argument which defaults to the locale string value of the environment variable "ZB_LANG", or, if it's not defined, "LANG". This allows applications to automatically switch the display language (provided the application was localized into the selected locale). E.g., the example application "moons" defaults to displaying English but can be changed to using German, French or Spanish, e.g., to display is German:

    $ export ZB_LANG=de
    $ moons

The externalization of messages into a .properties files allows the embedding of parameters references via index (also similar to Java), e.g., the message to print the value of a number, the message could be defined as

    00001=The value of the counter is {0} ticks.

The ZanyBlue.Text package supports the "passing" of argument values by "boxing" the values into ZanyBlue.Text objects. This particular message could be printed, with an argument of 1904 as,

    Print_Line ("myapp", "00001", +1904);

The unitary "+" operator is overloaded by the ZanyBlue.Text package to create the "boxed" object. See the ZanyBlue documentation for details on the types supported by the package.

If accessors are used, the generated Ada package will contain a routine for each key defined, e.g.,

    Print_00001 (+1904);

Argument numbers and, if type information is included in the messages, argument types can be checked by the compiler.

For full documentation and up-to-date information, visit the web site:

   http://zanyblue.sourceforge.net

The download area contains the bundle:

"zanyblue-VERSION-REVISION.tar.gz", the core ZanyBlue source bundle.

The ZanyBlue packages have been build primarily on Unix systems using GNAT GPL 2016 (or on Windows using GNAT GPL 2016). To build the library and message compiler (zbmcompile) only the compiler is needed.

The build is GNU make based. To build on Unix, assuming your PATH is setup correctly:

   $ cd zanyblue-VERSION
   $ make

To run the regression tests, Ahven is needed and is expected to be be installed on the build system, use the "check" build target in the src directory:

    $ make check

All the examples, except the "gtk" example, do not require additional packages beyond the ZanyBlue library. The "gtk" example requires the GtkAda package from AdaCore.

The "install" target can be used to install the utilities, library and supporting Ada code to an installation directory, e.g., /opt/Ada. The installation directory should be defined via the INSTALL_DIR on the make command line, e.g.,:

    $ make INSTALL_DIR install

For additional information contact Michael Rohan mrohan@zanyblue.com

ZanyBlue online HTML or PDF documentation.

ZanyBlue online HTML reference manual.

This version bring Unicode strings with UXStrings.

The ZanyBlue library was adapted to UXStrings.

The ZBMCompile utility was adapted to UXStrings and produces UXStrings based Ada files .

Before running make, set your GPR_PROJECT_PATH to UXStrings folder.

UXStrings needs an Ada 2022 compiler.

In your own Alire project, add ZanyBlue dependency:

% alr with zanyblue

Note: Alire will take care of dependencies.