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Add initial i18n documentation #18067

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merged 9 commits into from Oct 23, 2020
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248 changes: 248 additions & 0 deletions docs/advanced-features/i18n-routing.md
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# Internationalized Routing

<details>
<summary><b>Examples</b></summary>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/vercel/next.js/tree/canary/examples/i18n-routing">i18n routing</a></li>
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</ul>
</details>

Next.js has built-in support for internationalized ([i18n](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization#Naming)) routing since `v10.0.0`. You can provide a list of locales, the default locale, and domain-specific locales and Next.js will automatically handle the routing.

The i18n routing support is currently meant to complement existing i18n library solutions like `react-intl`, `react-i18next`, `lingui`, `rosetta`, and others by streamlining the routes and locale parsing.

## Getting started

To get started, add the `i18n` config to your `next.config.js` file.

Locales are [UTS Locale Identifiers](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr35/tr35-59/tr35.html#Identifiers), a standardized format for defining locales.

Generally a Locale Identifier is made up of a language, region, and script separated by a dash: `language-region-script`. The region and script are optional. An example:

- `en-US` - English as spoken in the United States
- `nl-NL` - Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands
- `nl` - Dutch, no specific region

```js
// next.config.js
module.exports = {
i18n: {
// These are all the locales you want to support in
// your application
locales: ['en-US', 'fr', 'nl-NL'],
// This is the default locale you want to be used when visiting
// a non-locale prefixed path e.g. `/hello`
defaultLocale: 'en-US',
// This is a list of locale domains and the default locale they
// should handle (these are only required when setting up domain routing)
domains: [
{
domain: 'example.com',
defaultLocale: 'en-US',
},
{
domain: 'example.nl',
defaultLocale: 'nl-NL',
},
{
domain: 'example.fr',
defaultLocale: 'fr',
},
],
},
}
```

## Locale Strategies

There are two locale handling strategies: Sub-path Routing and Domain Routing.

### Sub-path Routing

Sub-path Routing puts the locale in the url path.

```js
// next.config.js
module.exports = {
i18n: {
locales: ['en-US', 'fr', 'nl-NL'],
defaultLocale: 'en-US',
},
}
```

With the above configuration `en-US`, `fr`, and `nl-NL` will be available to be routed to, and `en-US` is the default locale. If you have a `pages/blog.js` the following urls would be available:

- `/blog`
- `/fr/blog`
- `/nl-nl/blog`

The default locale does not have a prefix.

### Domain Routing

By using domain routing you can configure locales to be served from different domains:

```js
// next.config.js
module.exports = {
i18n: {
locales: ['en-US', 'fr', 'nl-NL'],
defaultLocale: 'en-US',

domains: [
{
domain: 'example.com',
defaultLocale: 'en-US',
},
{
domain: 'example.fr',
defaultLocale: 'fr',
},
{
domain: 'example.nl',
defaultLocale: 'nl-NL',
},
],
},
}
```

For example if you have `pages/blog.js` the following urls will be available:

- `example.com/blog`
- `example.fr/blog`
- `example.nl/blog`

## Automatic Locale Detection

When a user visits the application root (generally `/`), Next.js will try to automatically detect which locale the user prefers based on the [`Accept-Language`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Accept-Language) header and the current domain.

If a locale other than the default locale is detected, the user will be redirected to either:

- **When using Sub-path Routing:** The locale prefixed path
- **When using Domain Routing:** The domain with that locale specified as the default

When using Domain Routing, if a user with the `Accept-Language` header `fr;q=0.9` visits `example.com`, they will be redirected to `example.fr` since that domain handles the `fr` locale by default.

When using Sub-path Routing, the user would be redirected to `/fr`.

## Accessing the locale information

You can access the locale information via the Next.js router. For example, using the [`useRouter()`](https://nextjs.org/docs/api-reference/next/router#userouter) hook the following properties are available:

- `locale` contains the currently active locale.
- `locales` contains all configured locales.
- `defaultLocale` contains the configured default locale.

When [pre-rendering](/docs/basic-features/pages#static-generation-recommended) pages with `getStaticProps` or `getServerSideProps`, the locale information is provided in [the context](https://nextjs.org/docs/basic-features/data-fetching#getstaticprops-static-generation) provided to the function.

When leveraging `getStaticPaths`, the supported locales are provided in the context parameter of the function under `locales`.

## Transition between locales

You can use `next/link` or `next/router` to transition between locales.

For `next/link`, a `locale` prop can be provided to transition to a different locale from the currently active one. If no `locale` prop is provided, the currently active `locale` is used during client-transitions. For example:

```jsx
import Link from 'next/link'

export default function IndexPage(props) {
return (
<Link href="/another" locale="fr">
<a>To /fr/another</a>
</Link>
)
}
```

When using the `next/router` methods directly, you can specify the `locale` that should be used via the transition options. For example:

```jsx
import { useRouter } from 'next/router'

export default function IndexPage(props) {
const router = useRouter()

return (
<div
onClick={() => {
router.push('/another', '/another', { locale: 'fr' })
}}
>
to /fr/another
</div>
)
}
```

If you have a `href` that already includes the locale you can opt-out of automatically handling the locale prefixing:

```jsx
import Link from 'next/link'

export default function IndexPage(props) {
return (
<Link href="/fr/another" locale={false}>
<a>To /fr/another</a>
</Link>
)
}
```

## Search Engine Optimization

Since Next.js knows what language the user is visiting it will automatically add the `lang` attribute to the `<html>` tag.

Next.js doesn't know about variants of a page so it's up to you to add the `hreflang` meta tags using [`next/head`](/docs/api-reference/next/head.md). You can learn more about `hreflang` in the [Google Webmasters documentation](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077).

## How does this work with Static Generation?

### Automatically Statically Optimized Pages

For pages that are automatically statically optimized, a version of the page will be generated for each locale.

### Non-dynamic getStaticProps Pages

For non-dynamic `getStaticProps` pages, a version is generated for each locale like above. `getStaticProps` is called with each `locale` that is being rendered. If you would like to opt-out of a certain locale from being pre-rendered, you can return `notFound: true` from `getStaticProps` and this variant of the page will not be generated.

```js
export async function getStaticProps({ locale }) {
// Call an external API endpoint to get posts.
// You can use any data fetching library
const res = await fetch(`https://.../posts?locale=${locale}`)
const posts = await res.json()

if (posts.length === 0) {
return {
notFound: true,
}
}

// By returning { props: posts }, the Blog component
// will receive `posts` as a prop at build time
return {
props: {
posts,
},
}
}
```

### Dynamic getStaticProps Pages

For dynamic `getStaticProps` pages, any locale variants of the page that is desired to be prerendered needs to be returned from [`getStaticPaths`](/docs/basic-features/data-fetching#getstaticpaths-static-generation). Along with the `params` object that can be returned for the `paths`, you can also return a `locale` field specifying which locale you want to render. For example:

```js
// pages/blog/[slug].js
export const getStaticPaths = ({ locales }) => {
return {
paths: [
{ params: { slug: 'post-1' }, locale: 'en-US' },
{ params: { slug: 'post-1' }, locale: 'fr' },
],
fallback: true,
}
}
```
7 changes: 6 additions & 1 deletion docs/api-reference/next/router.md
Expand Up @@ -43,7 +43,12 @@ The following is the definition of the `router` object returned by both [`useRou

- `pathname`: `String` - Current route. That is the path of the page in `/pages`
- `query`: `Object` - The query string parsed to an object. It will be an empty object during prerendering if the page doesn't have [data fetching requirements](/docs/basic-features/data-fetching.md). Defaults to `{}`
- `asPath`: `String` - Actual path (including the query) shown in the browser
- `asPath`: `String` - Actual path (including the query) shown in the browser.
- `isFallback`: `boolean` - Whether the current page is in [fallback mode](/docs/basic-features/data-fetching#fallback-pages).
- `basePath`: `String` - The active [basePath](/docs/api-reference/next.config.js/basepath) (if enabled).
- `locale`: `String` - The active locale (if enabled).
- `locales`: `String[]` - All supported locales (if enabled).
- `defaultLocale`: `String` - The current default locale (if enabled).

Additionally, the following methods are also included inside `router`:

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3 changes: 3 additions & 0 deletions docs/basic-features/data-fetching.md
Expand Up @@ -54,11 +54,14 @@ The `context` parameter is an object containing the following keys:
- `params` contains the route parameters for pages using dynamic routes. For example, if the page name is `[id].js` , then `params` will look like `{ id: ... }`. To learn more, take a look at the [Dynamic Routing documentation](/docs/routing/dynamic-routes.md). You should use this together with `getStaticPaths`, which we’ll explain later.
- `preview` is `true` if the page is in the preview mode and `undefined` otherwise. See the [Preview Mode documentation](/docs/advanced-features/preview-mode.md).
- `previewData` contains the preview data set by `setPreviewData`. See the [Preview Mode documentation](/docs/advanced-features/preview-mode.md).
- `locale` contains the active locale (if enabled).
- `locales` contains all supported locales (if enabled).

`getStaticProps` should return an object with:

- `props` - A **required** object with the props that will be received by the page component. It should be a [serializable object](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialization)
- `revalidate` - An **optional** amount in seconds after which a page re-generation can occur. More on [Incremental Static Regeneration](#incremental-static-regeneration)
- `notFound` - An optional boolean value to allow the page to return a 404 status and page. More on [Incremental Static Regeneration](#incremental-static-regeneration)

> **Note**: You can import modules in top-level scope for use in `getStaticProps`.
> Imports used in `getStaticProps` will [not be bundled for the client-side](#write-server-side-code-directly).
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