Plural ranges

[karimshalapy]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

In Arabic we have different forms of the plural word for different ranges of the number (for more information check here).

Usually the ranges are:

• Singular (1),
• Double (2)
• Broken Plural (3:10)
• Singular (>10)

Example using the word Book in Arabic:

• كتاب
• كتابان
• 3 كتب
• 11 كتاب

I tried to dig in the code and found nothing, and it wasn't mentioned in the docs, so I don't know if this feature exists, that's why I opened this ticket.

Describe the solution you'd like

So to decrease repetition, can we add a feature where we can define ranges of numbers not only single number while defining the different plural translations.

Proposed solutions:

1. "{variable, plural, =1 {One Plural} =3:10 {# Plurals} other {# Other Plural Form}}" (best DX)
2. "{variable, plural, =1 {One Plural} =3-10 {# Plurals} other {# Other Plural Form}}" (decent DX)
3. "{variable, plural, =1 {One Plural} =3 =4 =5 =6 =7 =8 =9 =10 {# Plurals} other {# Other Plural Form}}" (not so good DX, but definitely better than nothing)

Describe alternatives you've considered

To be able to do this now it will require a ton of repetition:

"{variable, plural, =1 {One Plural} =3 {# Plurals} =4 {# Plurals} =5 {# Plurals} =6 {# Plurals} =7 {# Plurals} =8 {# Plurals} =9 {# Plurals} =10 {# Plurals} other {# Other Plural Form}}"

[amannn]

Thanks for great question! We use the ICU parser from Format.JS currently, so we support all of these: https://formatjs.io/docs/core-concepts/icu-syntax#plural-format

This is obviously missing in the docs though (same for selectordinal). In your case, I guess "few" should be the right category. Can you confirm that this works? If so, would you by chance be interested in adding this information to the docs?

[karimshalapy]

@amannn Oh, Thanks for the prompt reply.
It definitely helps and you're correct the few keyword will resolve this feature request.

I think it might be worth adding that link to the docs as quick solution, until further enhancements down the road..

[amannn]

Yep, we should absolutely include that list of possible options both for plural as well as selectordinal. Would you by chance be interested in opening a PR? Otherwise I can try to look into it.

[karimshalapy]

After my working day today, I'll make the time to open a PR with the documentation.
What do you have in mind regarding this? I thought about saying that it uses FormatJS under the hood and references some links here and there.

[amannn]

That's very kind, thanks!

We tend to avoid external links by now when the content is important and not supplemental. E.g. for the date formats we have a table that contains all valid symbols: https://next-intl-docs.vercel.app/docs/usage/dates-times#dates-and-times-within-messages

I think similarly to this, we could include the list of supported pluralization forms.

Maybe we'll switch the parser at some point, I think this documentation could also be helpful to ensure we continue to support the same use cases.