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Adding a New Language to the Corpus (for Developers)

Introduction

These are the instructions for adding a language to the Tatoeba corpus. Instructions for adding a language in which the Tatoeba UI will be displayed are found elsewhere.

These instructions were copied from Assembla. They have not yet been verified for current use, or updated.

Instructions

The FAQ for users who want to add a new language: How to request a new language.

In the source code

There is a script on the server, add_lang.sh, that will modifiy the right files to add the new language code to the appropriate files. The script is called add_lang.sh. It can be executed as followed:

./add_lang.sh <lang_code> <english_name> <list_id>

For example:

./add_lang.sh eng English 123

Once this script is executed, the new languages will be available on the website. The sentences that were in the list with id <list_id> will have their language set to the new language (instead of being set to language unknown). This script edits the following files:

app/model/sentence.php Adds the language ISO code to the $validate array. Languages that are not part of this array are not allowed.
app/views/helpers/languages.php Adds the language ISO code and the name to the languagesArray() method.
docs/generate_sphinx_conf.php Adds the language ISO code and name to the $languages array. Also adds the ISO code to the $cjkLanguages array if the language uses Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters.

In addition, make this change:

app/webroot/img/flags/ Add an icon for the new language. Dimensions 30 x 20. Format png. Modify luminosity so that it looks a bit more pale than the original and add a 1 pixel border on right and bottom (color #dcdcdc).

In the past, we used to edit this:

app/controllers/components/google_language_api.php Adds the corresponding case to the google2TatoebaCode() method, if Google supports the detection for the language. See the Language enum.

but now tatodetect takes care of language detection.

After you make your changes, commit your code to the SVN repository.

In your local Tatoeba

Connect to mysql and select the database.
If you haven't done it yet, run the following script: docs/database/scripts/add_new_language.sql. It will create a procedure to easily add a new language and do the necessary updates in the database.
CALL add_new_language(iso_code, list_id, tag_name);
Read the comments in add_new_language.sql to have examples of the procedure.
Test that the language detection works (or can work) by adding a sentence with 'auto-detect'. There should be on Tatoeba a list of sentences in the language in question (named after the language in question).
Test that you can change the language of a sentence into the language in question.
Check that the count displays properly in the languages stats.
If it's all fine, commit and refer to the ticket #225 in your comment (=> re #225) and indicate the languages that were added. Also refer to any separate tickets that were added to track adding these languages in particular. The syntax for referring to multiple tickets is described here.

On the dev

Go to the 'dev' repository.
Update it, if necessary.
Connect to the mysql database of the dev version.
CALL add_new_language(iso_code, list_id, tag_name);
Test the same things you have tested in local.

On the prod

If everything is fine with the dev, go to the 'prod' repository.
htop
Check that the load is below 2.
Update the repository if necessary
Connect to the mysql database of the prod version.
CALL add_new_language(iso_code, list_id, tag_name);
exit
Check that the sentences that were in the list and tags have now the appropriate icon.
Check that the language appears in the languages stats.
cp /usr/local/etc/sphinx.conf /usr/local/etc/sphinx.conf.old
php generate_sphinx_conf.php > /usr/local/etc/sphinx.conf
Change the necessary things in the new config file (user, password, database and port). Look at the old conf file for reference.
indexer --all --rotate & disown