Some translations do not work in my template class

Question

I am struggling with the translations of my theme. I use the function get_permalink_date of my class. The relevant snippet is:

$permalink_title = sprintf(
    /* translators: 1 = Post Title, 2 = Author Name */
    esc_html_x( '%1$s by %2$s', 'permalink title', 'themeberger' ),
    __( 'A post', 'themeberger' ),
    get_the_author_meta( 'display_name', $this->post->post_author )
);

What I don't understand is that the translation from __(); works, but esc_html_x(); does not. I hope that someone can help me.

The relevant part from the .po file is:

#. translators: %1$s: Post Title. %2$s: Author Name.
#: themeberger/class-themeberger-post-functions.php:237
msgid "%1$s by %2$s"
msgstr "%1$s von %2$s"

#: themeberger/class-themeberger-post-functions.php:238
msgid "A post"
msgstr "Ein Beitrag"

The output is <a href="[...]" title="Ein Beitrag by Christian Hockenberger">[...]</a>

I really don't get it. In another line also _x( '%s ago', '%s = human-readable time difference', 'themeberger' ) is not working. I first thought that for some reason the translations are not transferred to the class, but __(); works.

What can I do?

Answer 1

You are trying to translate a string with a context but in your po file your string doesn't declare a context

To declare a context in your po file you need to use msgctxt

msgctxt "permalink title"
msgid "%1$s by %2$s"
msgstr "%1$s von %2$s"

You can find more documentation on how to format your PO file here (It's very simple, there is only 5 different declarations)

Or remove the context from your string like this

esc_html_x( '%1$s by %2$s', 'permalink title', 'themeberger' ); //With context
esc_html__( '%1$s by %2$s', 'themeberger' ); //Without context

You can find information on how to use the wordpress internationalization functions here

The documentation is pretty incomplete so I will add a list of the available functions

• __ Basic translation
• _n Translate a string with plural
• _x Translate a string with a context
• _nx Translate a string with a context and a plural

All of this function also have variants with esc_html_, esc_attr_ or _e in front of them

The _e variant will simply echo the string instead of returning it (I don't recommend using this as sometimes you will want to sprintf in your string but if you use _e within a sprintf it will not work and it's hard to catch)

The esc_html_ variant will escape the string to be displayed in html (eg: > becomes >) You should pretty much always use it in templates as it increases security by preventing XSS (some translations are public)

The esc_attr_ variant is to ALWAYS be used within an html attribute as it will escape quotes and others that would break your attribute

Example:

<a href="<?php esc_attr_e('https://domain.com/en/content/', 'domain') ?>"><?php esc_html_e('My link', 'domain') ?></a>

You can also look at the source code to see all the declared functions

Answer 2

Okay, it appears that I was overwhelmed by the amount of functions for translating strings. The functions with an 'x' in their name need a gettext context. I don't have that for my strings, so it didn't work.

esc_html_x(); replaced with esc_html__(); and _x(); replaced with __(); is the simple solution.

Embarrassing for me, hopefully helpful for someone else.