Is it possible to make Zend_Translate automatically create strings for translation according to it's request?

I mean for example I need to translate some form and it's error messages. Generally I don't know what exact message I will have and I desire to see translation source string of message in my translation file after first call of this.

... form code here ...
$firstname = new Zend_Form_Element_Text(.....)
$firstname->setLabel('Your firstname')
... form code ....

After I set translator for this form it should call translation functions when I render form. After first render I want to see "Your firstname" in my translation file (for example with gettext adapter) and empty translation for this. Is it possible?

PS. Why I ask this question? Primary because of usibility, secondary just imagine that I need to validate $firstname by LessThan Validator. It has a message template '%value%' is not less than '%max%', so actually as simple user I don't know what message used for this. Visually I see only "'[entered name]' is not less than '10'" for example and I don't know what to translate generally

Yes, it is. You just need to write a method, which takes the complete form object as an argument. In that method you can iterate over the form elements in order to get all the labels. Then use your Zend_Translate object and check whether the given label is already translated (isTranslated()) and if not append it to your .po file. You just need to make sure, that the method is called every time a form object is created.

If you want the keys of the errors, you have to call your method after submitting the form. $form->getErrors() will return an array with all occured errors.

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Beware that such a methodology is problematic in a production environment.

It will probably kill your performance.

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Thomas Weidner
I18N Team Leader, Zend Framework
http://www.thomasweidner.com

There was a thread on Czech board.

Have a look at shell script used for extraction from code. (you can use cygwin on windows).

I think, that poEdit has some function with the same purpose, but it is not very stable

That shell script won't work in this case because there are no keywords which xgettext could find if you work with Zend_Form.

Weird, I never had any stability issues with poEdit and I'm using it regularly.

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You're a lucky man

look, actually I thought about to use translation interface itself to do all dirty work. Maybe it's better to use some cover under method _() in translator object which first will check context for exsiting translation, if not - add a key into .po, gettext etc. I suppose it should be very useful in all situation not only when I translate form or something else. Also it could be used in production because adding key action will be called only once. What you think?

There is no need to add something additionally to check if a translation is available.

When you look into Zend_Translate you will see that there is a isTranslated() method. Why not simply use this ?

__________________
Greetings
Thomas Weidner
I18N Team Leader, Zend Framework
http://www.thomasweidner.com

of course, I know this, I just purpose the methodic. And of course we need to override all adapters and abstract translate class