How do I tell why Django is ignoring the Accept-Language header?

Question

I have a Django app (on Google App Engine) that I wish to internationalize.

settings.py:

USE_I18N = True
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en'

# Restrict supported languages (and JS media generation)
LANGUAGES = (
  ('en', 'English'),
  ('fr', 'French'),
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
  'ragendja.middleware.ErrorMiddleware',
  'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
  # i18n
  'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware',
  ...

I have generated .po and .mo files for my app in locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES (though not at the global level).

I set my browser Accept-Language heading to "fr" and Django ignores it. When I look at request.LANGUAGE_CODE it is always "en".

I can tell the browser is proper because I visit some other i18n-aware site and it returns French.

How do I find what Django thinks is missing about my setup?

I saw this question and it didn't help me.

I am running Django 1.0 using app engine patch 1.0.2.2 on Google App Engine.

Answer 1

There's a certain order that Django does things in terms of i18n.

First it checks LANGUAGE_CODE. It's the site-wide language and if nothing else is set, this is the language the user gets.

Second, since you've added the LocaleMiddleware, it checks if django_language is set in the user session. I would suggest clearing the session information in the DB or creating a completely new user to try with.

Third, it checks if there's a django_language cookie set (or, actually, the name of the cookie is defined by the LANGUAGE_COOKIE_NAME). I would suggest deleting this cookie.

Fourth, it looks for the Accept-Language HTTP header. Which is where your browser setting comes in.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Taken from this page, you can remove the HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE from the request and fall back on the LocaleMiddleware:

class ForceDefaultLanguageMiddleware(object):
    """
    Ignore Accept-Language HTTP headers

    This will force the I18N machinery to always choose settings.LANGUAGE_CODE
    as the default initial language, unless another one is set via sessions or cookies

    Should be installed *before* any middleware that checks request.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'],
    namely django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware
    """

    def process_request(self, request):
        if request.META.has_key('HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'):
            del request.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']