Regression(?) in v1.3.0, when used with rails-i18n

[tom-lord]

What I tried to do

"Composite" translations, where a hash is defined within the translation itself, have changed behaviour in v1.2.0 and v1.3.0, when this gem is used in a Rails application.

What I expected to happen/actually happened/versions

Here is a repo I have created demonstrating the behavioural changes:

https://github.com/tom-lord/i18n_regression

In particular, note that we have now stringified they keys of nested hashes (the last line says "hello", not :hello).

Is the new behaviour desired? Maybe.

Unlike before, v1.3.0 of this library's behaves the same way with and without Rails.

However, it's an undocumented change, which caught me off-guard. If this behaviour is expected, can we please add a regression test and ideally documentation?

[tom-lord]

Relates to:
#422
#443
#444
#445

[radar]

Thank you for reporting this. My understanding of the code in core_ext/hash means that this hello key should be symbolised as well, due to the nature of deep_symbolize_keys. If it is not, then I would consider that a bug.

A patch with at least a regression test would be appreciated. Similarly to #447, I will not have time to investigate this deeply until after Jan 2.

[PikachuEXE]

@tom-lord
Please take a look at #450 for possible fix

[PikachuEXE]

reopened?

[radar]

possible fix

Not 100% confirmed by @tom-lord

I’m just being cautious after the #444 debacle.

[tom-lord]

@PikachuEXE @radar Thanks for the quick response/feedback/fix.

I'm happy with #450 as a fix for the issue. I think the new behaviour is best, for the majority of users.

Focusing on the "composite keys" situation, to summarise what's changed now:

v1.1.1:

• With rails: Keys are symbols, unless integer/boolean.
• Without rails: Keys are strings, unless integer/boolean.

v1.2.0:

• With rails: Keys are symbols, (always).
• Without rails: Keys are strings, unless integer/boolean.

v1.3.0:

• With rails: Keys are strings, unless integer/boolean.
• Without rails: Keys are strings, unless integer/boolean.

master [EDIT - now released in v1.4.0]:

• With rails: Keys are symbols, unless integer/boolean.
• Without rails: Keys are symbols, unless integer/boolean.

---

Both v1.3.0 and master seem valid to me; but both are a change in behaviour. So either way, a little documentation on the matter (even just a mention in the CHANGELOG) would be very helpful.

In my opinion, making keys symbols-unless-integer/boolean (the current master version) is best, in terms of consistency and backwards compatibility. In future, perhaps consider dropping this weird integer/boolean edge case, and just making keys always symbols - but that's a breaking change.

[radar]

Thank you for your confirmation @tom-lord. I agree that symbolising everything would make the API at least consistent, and also agree that it's a breaking change; something that should go into a new major release (i.e. 2.x) -- which is a long way off at this point in time.