Jekyll i18n Error

Question

I installed i18n gem and plugin to localize the dates, but when I serve the site I get the following error:

Malahovas-MacBook-Pro:test Svetlana$ rake
Configuration file: /Users/Svetlana/Desktop/test/_config.yml
            Source: /Users/Svetlana/Desktop/test
       Destination: /Users/Svetlana/Desktop/test/_site
      Generating... 
  Liquid Exception: Object must be a Date, DateTime or Time object. "2015-12-01" given. in _includes/footer.html, included in _layouts/post.html
jekyll 2.5.3 | Error:  Object must be a Date, DateTime or Time object. "2015-12-01" given.

In footer.html I have the following code:

<time datetime="{{ page.date | date: "%Y-%m-%d" }}">
    {{ page.date | localize: "%d %B %Y" }}
</time>

Here is the code for the plugin i18n_filter.rb:

require 'i18n'

LOCALE = :ru # set your locale

# Create folder "_locales" and put some locale file from
# https://github.com/svenfuchs/rails-i18n/tree/master/rails/locale
module Jekyll
  module I18nFilter
    # Example:
    # {{ post.date | localize: "%d.%m.%Y" }}
    # {{ post.date | localize: ":short" }}
    def localize(input, format=nil)
      load_translations
      format = (format =~ /^:(\w+)/) ? $1.to_sym : format
      I18n.l input, :format => format
    end

    def load_translations
      unless I18n::backend.instance_variable_get(:@translations)
        I18n.backend.load_translations Dir[File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '../_locales/*.yml')]
        I18n.locale = LOCALE
      end
    end
  end
end

It is a collection document. After running build with --trace I get:

Malahovas-MacBook-Pro:test Svetlana$ jekyll build --trace
Configuration file: /Users/Svetlana/Desktop/test/_config.yml
            Source: /Users/Svetlana/Desktop/test
       Destination: /Users/Svetlana/Desktop/test/_site
      Generating... 
  Liquid Exception: Object must be a Date, DateTime or Time object. "2015-12-01" given. in _includes/footer.html, included in _layouts/post.html
/Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/tags/include.rb:124:in `rescue in render': Object must be a Date, DateTime or Time object. "2015-12-01" given. (Jekyll::Tags::IncludeTagError)
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/tags/include.rb:116:in `render'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/liquid-2.6.1/lib/liquid/block.rb:109:in `block in render_all'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/liquid-2.6.1/lib/liquid/block.rb:96:in `each'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/liquid-2.6.1/lib/liquid/block.rb:96:in `render_all'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/liquid-2.6.1/lib/liquid/block.rb:82:in `render'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/liquid-2.6.1/lib/liquid/template.rb:128:in `render'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/liquid-2.6.1/lib/liquid/template.rb:138:in `render!'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/renderer.rb:92:in `render_liquid'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/renderer.rb:134:in `place_in_layouts'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/renderer.rb:56:in `run'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/site.rb:292:in `block (2 levels) in render'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/site.rb:291:in `each'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/site.rb:291:in `block in render'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/site.rb:290:in `each'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/site.rb:290:in `render'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/site.rb:51:in `process'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/command.rb:28:in `process_site'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/commands/build.rb:56:in `build'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/commands/build.rb:34:in `process'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/lib/jekyll/commands/build.rb:18:in `block (2 levels) in init_with_program'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/mercenary-0.3.3/lib/mercenary/command.rb:220:in `call'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/mercenary-0.3.3/lib/mercenary/command.rb:220:in `block in execute'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/mercenary-0.3.3/lib/mercenary/command.rb:220:in `each'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/mercenary-0.3.3/lib/mercenary/command.rb:220:in `execute'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/mercenary-0.3.3/lib/mercenary/program.rb:35:in `go'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/mercenary-0.3.3/lib/mercenary.rb:22:in `program'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/gems/jekyll-2.5.3/bin/jekyll:20:in `<top (required)>'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/bin/jekyll:23:in `load'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/bin/jekyll:23:in `<main>'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/bin/ruby_executable_hooks:15:in `eval'
    from /Users/Svetlana/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p451/bin/ruby_executable_hooks:15:in `<main>'

Do you know how this can be fixed?

Answer 1

I18n.localize or I18n.l expects Date, DateTime or Time argument. page.date should actually be of type DateTime or Time, but I am assuming that the filter is not loaded and therefor ignored by Jekyll (I added the Liquid-filter loading at the bottom). Here is one possible fix:

Try to parse the input string before the call to I18n.localize:

Assuming you have a locale file ru.yml in your project directory in a folder named ./locales/. i18n.rb is placed in ./_plugins/i18n.rb

require 'date'
require 'i18n'

path = File.expand_path("../../locales/ru.yml", __FILE__)
I18n.load_path = Dir[path]
I18n.locale = :ru

module Jekyll
  module I18nFilter
    # Example:
    # {{ post.date | localize: "%d.%m.%Y" }}
    # {{ post.date | localize: ":short" }}
    def localize(input, format=nil)
      format = (format =~ /^:(\w+)/) ? $1.to_sym : format

      if input.is_a?(String)
        input = DateTime.parse(input)
      end

      I18n.l input, :format => format
    end

    def translate(key)
      I18n.t key
    end
  end
end

# Add as a filter
Liquid::Template.register_filter(Jekyll::I18nFilter)

ru.yml can be any valid yaml file, containing the locale, e.g.:

ru:
  hello: приве́т

The conversion to DateTime might cause an error if input is a malformed String, e.g. empty "" or missing something needed for a date. Minimum would be something like: "2015-01-13".

As an alternative to Jekyll: Check out Nanoc, it seems to be more up-to-date and is easier to extend. It's used at Github and we use it for all static pages on our localization platform PhraseApp