Date localization with nanoc's "created_at"

I found lot of articles talking about i18n with Rails, Nanoc, but nothing about a really simple (I think) thing: how to internationalize a date on a nanoc article.

I have a really simple setup, for example here is a snippet of my index.html page:

<%= link_to(post[:title], post.path) %> - <%= post[:created_at] %>

This is a dummy article:

---
title: Test
created_at: 1 January 1970
---

Wich gives this result when compiled:

Test - 1 January 1970 

But I would like the date to be in French, like this:

Test - 1 Janvier 1970

You can use Rails' internationalization gem, i18n, on its own for this task. Here's a simple example:

1. If you're using Bundler, edit your nanoc project's Gemfile to include the i18n gem:

   gem 'i18n'
   

   Otherwise, install the gem locally on your computer (for which you'll probably need superuser privileges):

   gem install i18n
   

2. Add a French translation file at, say, tr/fr.yml, to your nanoc project. Place in it these (minimal) contents:

   ---
   fr:
     date:
       formats:
         default: ! '%-d %B %Y'
       month_names:
       - 
       - janvier
       - février
       - mars
       - avril
       - mai
       - juin
       - juillet
       - août
       - septembre
       - octobre
       - novembre
       - décembre
   

3. Add a helper for performing the translation, for instance at lib/translate_date.rb, with this code:

    require 'date'
    require 'i18n'
   
    # Load our translation files
    I18n.load_path = Dir['./tr/*.yml']
   
    # Set the default locale to French
    I18n.locale = :fr
   
    # Translates a date string into the default locale.
    def translate_date(date)
      I18n.l Date.parse(date, '%d %B %Y')
    end
   

4. Now place this in your index.html file,

   <%= link_to(post[:title], post.path) %> - <%= translate_date(post[:created_at]) %>
   

   and you should get the output you want.