sails.hooks.views.render() : Render view, in non request scope, do not take locale into account

[jberrisch]

Sails version:0.12.4
Node version:4.5.0
NPM version:2.15.9
Operating system:Os X 10.11.6

---

I try to use a hook (sails-hook-cron) to send emails to customers who have different locales.
In this hook I use 'sails.hooks.views.render' to compile my email template.
This works quite fine but when I pass the locale as options it is ignored.
Here is a example hook to reproduce this error:

module.exports = function(sails) {
    return {
        initialize: function(cb) {
            sails.on('lifted', function() {
                if (sails.hooks.views && sails.hooks.views.render) {
                    sails.hooks.views.render('email/test', {
                        locale: 'fr'
                    }, (err, compiledEmail) => {
                        console.log(compiledEmail);
                    });
                }
            });

            return cb();
        }
    }
};

I got into the source code and at the ligne 102 of the file: node_modules/sails/lib/hooks/views/render.js the 'req.locale' is set to 'options.locale'.

var req = {
  headers: {}
};

// Initialize i18n if hook is enabled
if (sails.hooks.i18n) {
  require('i18n').init(req, options, function() {

    // Set the locale if necessary
    if (options.locale) {
      req.locale = options.locale;
    }

    // Render the view
    sails.config.views.engine.fn(absPathToView, options, cb_view);
  });
}

But, ... the i18n module invoked at ligne 98 (require('i18n').init) overrides the 'options.locale' value.
So at ligne 102 it will always be set to the default locale because i18n guesses the value from the url-params / headers / cookies but never from the options.

By adding:

req.headers['accept-language'] = (options.locale || sails.hooks.i18n.defaultLocale);

after ligne 97 (render.js) it works like expected, but I guess this is not very beautiful.

I tried to write a pull request and a test for this issue, but I had some trouble charging the i18n hook for the test because there's no sample configuration...

[Josebaseba]

I can confirm that with sails v0.11.5 it's working properly.

[jberrisch]

I downgraded my sails (0.12.4) i18n module to version 0.5.0 (dependency of sails 0.11.5) and it works fine.
They (i18n team) changed a lot in how the .init function works...

[Josebaseba]

This feature it's really important for my app, so when I find some time I'll try to find a solution and then send a PR. I want to update to sails v0.12 but I need this functionality running!

[mikermcneil]

@Josebaseba That'd be awesome! Talked to @dougwilson a little bit about this recently, but unfortunately it sounds like there's still a ways to go before views support will be ready to extrapolate from Express.

In the mean time, if you're able to get this working, then we can make sails.renderView() (aka sails.hooks.views.render) officially supported & documented for Sails v1

[Josebaseba]

Done 👍 #3889

[jberrisch]

Wonderful news, thanks a lot!

[Josebaseba]

@jberrisch please can you test it? npm install sails@^0.12.10-1

For me it's working as it should, take a look and then we can close this issue. Thanks!

[mikermcneil]

@Josebaseba @jberrisch thanks guys!

(Now published as 0.12.10)