New thin layer of API extension chrome.i18n.detectLanguage

chrome/common/extensions/api/i18n.json

Index: chrome/common/extensions/api/i18n.json
diff --git a/chrome/common/extensions/api/i18n.json b/chrome/common/extensions/api/i18n.json
index d29c0e69cf8f6fc22fe67ff30a1f4e0be939f666..26ffe2d3ed8b599fe33c8d2f3fb2b402e936eca4 100644
--- a/chrome/common/extensions/api/i18n.json
+++ b/chrome/common/extensions/api/i18n.json
@@ -55,6 +55,49 @@
           "type": "string",
           "description": "The browser UI language code such as en-US or fr-FR."
         }
+      },
+      {
+        "name": "detectLanguage",
+        "type": "function",
+        "description": "Detects the language of the provided text using CLD.",
+        "parameters": [
+          {
+            "type": "string",
+            "name": "text",
+            "minimum": 0,
+            "optional": true,
+            "description": "Defaults to the null string."

[not at google - send to devlin, 2015/07/08 19:27:30]

Why would we support null strings?

[mcindy, 2015/07/08 21:26:12]

The API and the CLD are implemented to handle null strings

[not at google - send to devlin, 2015/07/08 21:47:59]

What API? We're making our API right now. It doesn't make sense to try to
translate a null string, whether or not the C++ library supports it.

[mcindy, 2015/07/08 23:28:02]

Currently, when the user passes in null value, the chrome.i18n.detectLanguage
returns an error. Would it suffice to change the description of this param?

[not at google - send to devlin, 2015/07/08 23:29:07]

Just don't make it optional. Then when the extension passes in a null value, it
will throw an exception.

[mcindy, 2015/07/09 18:38:27]

Done.

+          },
+          {
+            "type": "function",
+            "name": "callback",
+            "parameters": [
+              {
+                "type": "object",
+                "name": "result",
+                "description": "LanguageDetectionResult object that holds detected langugae reliability and array of DetectedLanguage",
+                "properties": {
+                  "is_reliable": { "type": "boolean", "description": "CLD detected language reliability" },

[not at google - send to devlin, 2015/07/08 19:27:30]

APIs typically use camelcase.

[mcindy, 2015/07/08 21:26:12]

Done.

+                  "languages":
+                    {
+                      "type": "array",
+                      "description": "array of detectedLanguage",
+                      "items":
+                        {
+                          "type": "object",
+                          "description": "DetectedLanguage object that holds detected ISO language code and its percentage in the input string",
+                          "properties":
+                            {
+                              "language": { "type": "string", "description": "An ISO language code such as <code>en</code> or <code>fr</code>. For a complete list of languages supported by this method, see <a href='http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/third_party/cld/languages/internal/languages.cc'>kLanguageInfoTable</a>. The 2nd to 4th columns will be checked and the first non-NULL value will be returned except for Simplified Chinese for which zh-CN will be returned. For an unknown language, <code>und</code> will be returned." },

[not at google - send to devlin, 2015/07/08 19:27:30]

Why return "und" rather than null or something? What does it even mean to say
that 80% of the text is an unknown language?

[mcindy, 2015/07/08 21:26:12]

und means that the CLD cannot determine the language. So 80% of unknown means
that CLD cannot detect 80% of the input string.

[not at google - send to devlin, 2015/07/08 21:47:59]

IMO a nicer API would be to either have a null language.

[mcindy, 2015/07/08 23:12:29]

Did you mean "null" in string or null type?

[not at google - send to devlin, 2015/07/08 23:13:31]

I mean to make the language an optional field.

[mcindy, 2015/07/09 18:38:27]

Done.

+                              "percentage": { "type": "integer", "description": "The percentage of the detected language" }
+                            }
+                        }
+                    }
+                }
+              }
+            ]
+          }
+        ]
       }
     ],
     "events": []