CLI option: --validate

[jacobp100]

Some workflows may wish to commit English translations to git. It would be useful to have a validate mode - like when linting, running Prettier, or TypeScript's --noEmit option.

What are your thoughts on a --validate option, which would be used in conjunction with --out-file. When both are used, the outfile will be read, and if there are any changes with the new translation set and the existing, the CLI will exit with a non-zero error code, and possibly show differences.

We are happy to implement this feature.

[longlho]

I'm open to this, although this is not really validating the output file, but more like just diffing an emitted file w/ what we're able to extract from the source code. Maybe --show-changed or --diff or something along those lines.

[jacobp100]

Would you be okay with --diff returning a non-zero code if there was a diff?

[longlho]

Yup sgtm

[jacobp100]

@longlho I've had a discussion with our team to get the go-ahead to do this work. We're doing an MFE kind of system, and we don't want to force developers to use formatjs extract over manually maintaining a JSON translations file. So with that in mind, what do you think about a command like,

formatjs validate <files> --in-file <file> [--format <format>] [--throws]

The validation behaviour would be,

• ✅ A FormattedMessage doesn't have a defaultMessage but the translation exists in the in file
• ✅ A FormattedMessage has a defaultMessage, the translation exits in the in file, and the messages match
• ❌ A FormattedMessage has an id that doesn't exist in the in file
• ❌ A FormattedMessage has a defaultMessage, the translation exists in the in file, but they differ

In each of the fail cases, we could print a diff-like message, and the program will exit with a non-zero status if any of these are printed.

Does this sound reasonable?

[longlho]

for the 2 ✅ cases do they have IDs?
At a high level it sounds to me like the IDs need to match and defaultMessage if exists also need to match. Does that sound correct?

[jacobp100]

Yes - everything has to have an ID

[jacobp100]

I'll be able to work on this on Friday

[dheeraj-jn]

@jacobp100 I'm looking for something like this. Were you able to get this to work?