translate.py

#! /usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""This script allow users to translate a string 
from one language to another with Google translate"""

import sys
import re
import urllib
import urllib2
import json

def print_params(data):
  """print parameters from list"""
  for val in data:
    if isinstance(val, basestring):
      print "\t " + val

def main():
  """
  Usage:
    first arg - string to translate
    second arg - source lang
    third arg - target lang  
  Example:
    translate.py 'text to translate' en ru
    translate.py 'text to translate' ru en
  """
  
  url = "http://translate.google.com/translate_a/t?%s"
  list_of_params = {'client' : 't', 
                    'hl' : 'en', 
                    'multires' : '1', }  
  
  #all arguments given
  if len(sys.argv) in [2,3,4]:
    if len(sys.argv) == 2:
      list_of_params.update({'text' : sys.argv[1],
                             'tl' : "uk" })
    elif len(sys.argv) == 3:
      list_of_params.update({'text' : sys.argv[1],
                             'tl' : sys.argv[2] })
    else:
      list_of_params.update({'text' : sys.argv[1],
                             'sl' : sys.argv[2],
                             'tl' : sys.argv[3] })
    request = urllib2.Request(url % urllib.urlencode(list_of_params), 
      headers={ 'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0', 'Accept-Charset': 'utf-8' })
    res = urllib2.urlopen(request).read()

    fixed_json = re.sub(r',{2,}', ',', res).replace(',]', ']')  
    data = json.loads(fixed_json)
    
    #simple translation
    print "%s / %s / %s" % (data[0][0][0], data[0][0][1], 
                data[0][0][2] or data[0][0][3])
    
    #abbreviation
    if not isinstance(data[1], basestring):
      print data[1][0][0]
      print_params(data[1][0][1])
      
    #interjection  
    try:
      if not isinstance(data[1][1], basestring):
        print data[1][1][0]
        print_params(data[1][1][1])
    except Exception:
      print "no interjection" 
  else:
    print main.__doc__
    
if __name__ == '__main__':
  main()