utas

utas is a command-line tool that converts Twine-style localization files into native string resources for Android and iOS.

Name

• Original spelling (Mongolian Cyrillic): утас
• Romanization: utas
• Pronunciation (IPA): /ʊˈtʰas/, colloquially reduced to [ʊts] (Khalkha Mongolian tends to minimize or drop short unstressed vowels)

The name comes from the Mongolian word for "thread" / "string" (as of an instrument) / "wire" — by extension also "telephone" or "phone line" (e.g. гар утас, literally "hand wire", meaning "mobile phone"). Both of its vowels (у, а) belong to the back ("hard") vowel harmony class in Mongolian, so the word is pronounced firmly/hard throughout, without the palatalized, "soft" articulation that front-vowel Mongolian words get.

It reads .txt files written in Twine's INI-like format and generates:

• Android: values-<locale>/<name>.xml resource files (<string> and <plurals> entries), with correct handling of region qualifiers (en-GB -> values-en-rGB), obsolete/legacy language codes (he -> iw, id -> in), and simplified/traditional Chinese script qualifiers.
• iOS: <locale>.lproj/<Name>.strings and <Name>.stringsdict files, with placeholder syntax converted from Twine (%@) to the platform's positional format (%1$s), and support for filling in missing translations from a default language.

Both platforms get correct escaping of special characters, HTML tag preservation for supported markup, and printf-style placeholder numbering/positioning.

What it does

Given one or more Twine .txt source files structured as:

[[Src1]]
  [greeting]
    en = Hello %@
    ru = Привет %@

  [cows]
    en:one = %d cow
    en:other = %d cows
    ru:one = %d корова
    ru:other = %d коров

utas parses every locale/key pair, groups plural forms by quantity (zero, one, two, few, many, other), and emits per-locale resource files ready to drop into an Android or iOS project.

CLI usage

utas <platform> <input_dir> <output_dir> [default_lang] [file_name]

Argument	Required	Description
platform	yes	android or ios
input_dir	yes	Directory containing Twine .txt source files
output_dir	yes	Directory to write generated resources into
default_lang	no	Locale code used as the fallback for missing translations
file_name	no	iOS only — base name for the generated .strings/.stringsdict files (defaults to Localizable)

Examples:

# Android: generate values*/strings.xml, falling back to "en" for missing keys
utas android ./twine ./app/src/main/res en

# iOS: generate en.lproj/Localizable.strings, ru.lproj/Localizable.strings, etc.
utas ios ./twine ./MyApp/Resources en

Project structure

.
├── src/                  # utas binary crate
│   ├── main.rs           # CLI argument parsing and pipeline orchestration
│   ├── parse.rs          # Twine .txt -> internal File/Section/Key model
│   ├── android_gen.rs    # internal model -> Android values-*/*.xml
│   └── ios_gen.rs        # internal model -> iOS *.lproj/*.strings(dict)
├── crates/
│   └── file/              # small helper crate for comparing files/dirs,
│       └── src/            # used by integration tests to diff expected
│                            # vs. generated output
├── tests/
│   ├── test.rs            # integration tests: run the built binary against
│   │                        # fixtures and compare output byte-for-byte
│   └── cases/
│       ├── android/case*/  # input/ + output/ fixture pairs for Android
│       └── ios/case*/      # input/ + output/ fixture pairs for iOS
├── .github/workflows/
│   ├── push.yml             # build + test on every push/PR to master
│   └── release.yml          # build + publish release binaries for
│                              # Linux/macOS/Windows on a release tag
├── Cargo.toml               # utas binary crate manifest
├── Cargo.lock
└── LICENSE

Building and testing locally

cargo build --release
cargo test               # unit + integration tests for the utas crate
cargo test -p file       # tests for the file-comparison helper crate

Releasing via GitHub Actions

Releases are fully automated by a single workflow, release.yml, triggered by pushing a git tag with the right suffix. All platforms selected by the tag share one GitHub Release (identified by the tag name) — the workflow builds each selected platform in parallel, attaches its archive to that shared release as a draft, and only publishes the release once every platform the tag selected has finished successfully.

Tag pattern	Platforms built	Artifact(s)
*release-linux	Linux only	utas-release-linux.tar.gz
*release-mac	macOS only	utas-release-mac-os.zip
*release-win	Windows only	utas-release-windows.zip
*release	Linux + macOS + Windows	utas-release-linux.tar.gz, utas-release-mac-os.zip, utas-release-windows.zip

For each selected platform, release.yml:

1. Runs cargo test (and cargo test -p file) — the release build only proceeds if tests pass.
2. Builds utas in release mode (cargo build --release).
3. Compresses the resulting binary into a platform-specific archive.
4. Creates (or updates) a draft GitHub Release for the pushed tag and uploads the archive as a release asset, via softprops/action-gh-release.

Once every platform job the tag selected has finished, a final publish-release job flips that shared release from draft to published via gh release edit --draft=false, so it shows up under Releases / Latest only when it's actually complete — never half-built with some platform's archive still missing.

How to cut a release

1. Make sure master is green (the push.yml workflow passes).

2. Pick a tag name ending in the suffix for the platform(s) you want to release, e.g. v1.2.0-release to build for all three platforms, or v1.2.0-release-mac to build macOS only.

3. Tag and push:

   git tag v1.5.0-release
   git push origin v1.5.0-release

4. Watch the workflow run under the Actions tab — each selected platform builds in its own job.

5. Once every selected platform's job succeeds, the release is published automatically with all of its archives attached; no manual "Publish" click is needed. If a platform job fails, the release stays a draft so an incomplete release is never shown as the latest one — fix the issue and re-push the tag (after deleting the old one) to retry.

To release for every platform at once, use a tag ending in exactly release (not release-<platform>).