I was using Ajax to do some DOM manipulation in a Rails app I was working on. None of what I was doing needed to involve a round trip to server, the only reason I hit the server at all was to take advantage of Rails' (well, ActiveSupport's) pluralize function. Also, this technique required an extra action that I decided to eliminate as I try to move to a more RESTful architecture.

The only part of ActiveSupport's Inflector class I implemented are the ones I needed. I implemented even fewer of Rails' Inflector-based functions.

Stick all this in a file, such as "inflector.js".

   1  /*
   2   * This script depends on no outside libraries.
   3   */
   4  
   5  Inflector = {
   6      /*
   7       * The order of all these lists has been reversed from the way 
   8       * ActiveSupport had them to keep the correct priority.
   9       */
  10      Inflections: {
  11          plural: [
  12              [/(quiz)$/i,               "$1zes"  ],
  13              [/^(ox)$/i,                "$1en"   ],
  14              [/([m|l])ouse$/i,          "$1ice"  ],
  15              [/(matr|vert|ind)ix|ex$/i, "$1ices" ],
  16              [/(x|ch|ss|sh)$/i,         "$1es"   ],
  17              [/([^aeiouy]|qu)y$/i,      "$1ies"  ],
  18              [/(hive)$/i,               "$1s"    ],
  19              [/(?:([^f])fe|([lr])f)$/i, "$1$2ves"],
  20              [/sis$/i,                  "ses"    ],
  21              [/([ti])um$/i,             "$1a"    ],
  22              [/(buffal|tomat)o$/i,      "$1oes"  ],
  23              [/(bu)s$/i,                "$1ses"  ],
  24              [/(alias|status)$/i,       "$1es"   ],
  25              [/(octop|vir)us$/i,        "$1i"    ],
  26              [/(ax|test)is$/i,          "$1es"   ],
  27              [/s$/i,                    "s"      ],
  28              [/$/,                      "s"      ]
  29          ],
  30          singular: [
  31              [/(quiz)zes$/i,                                                    "$1"     ],
  32              [/(matr)ices$/i,                                                   "$1ix"   ],
  33              [/(vert|ind)ices$/i,                                               "$1ex"   ],
  34              [/^(ox)en/i,                                                       "$1"     ],
  35              [/(alias|status)es$/i,                                             "$1"     ],
  36              [/(octop|vir)i$/i,                                                 "$1us"   ],
  37              [/(cris|ax|test)es$/i,                                             "$1is"   ],
  38              [/(shoe)s$/i,                                                      "$1"     ],
  39              [/(o)es$/i,                                                        "$1"     ],
  40              [/(bus)es$/i,                                                      "$1"     ],
  41              [/([m|l])ice$/i,                                                   "$1ouse" ],
  42              [/(x|ch|ss|sh)es$/i,                                               "$1"     ],
  43              [/(m)ovies$/i,                                                     "$1ovie" ],
  44              [/(s)eries$/i,                                                     "$1eries"],
  45              [/([^aeiouy]|qu)ies$/i,                                            "$1y"    ],
  46              [/([lr])ves$/i,                                                    "$1f"    ],
  47              [/(tive)s$/i,                                                      "$1"     ],
  48              [/(hive)s$/i,                                                      "$1"     ],
  49              [/([^f])ves$/i,                                                    "$1fe"   ],
  50              [/(^analy)ses$/i,                                                  "$1sis"  ],
  51              [/((a)naly|(b)a|(d)iagno|(p)arenthe|(p)rogno|(s)ynop|(t)he)ses$/i, "$1$2sis"],
  52              [/([ti])a$/i,                                                      "$1um"   ],
  53              [/(n)ews$/i,                                                       "$1ews"  ],
  54              [/s$/i,                                                            ""       ]
  55          ],
  56          irregular: [
  57              ['move',   'moves'   ],
  58              ['sex',    'sexes'   ],
  59              ['child',  'children'],
  60              ['man',    'men'     ],
  61              ['person', 'people'  ]
  62          ],
  63          uncountable: [
  64              "sheep",
  65              "fish",
  66              "series",
  67              "species",
  68              "money",
  69              "rice",
  70              "information",
  71              "equipment"
  72          ]
  73      },
  74      ordinalize: function(number) {
  75          if (11 <= parseInt(number) % 100 && parseInt(number) % 100 <= 13) {
  76              return number + "th";
  77          } else {
  78              switch (parseInt(number) % 10) {
  79                  case  1: return number + "st";
  80                  case  2: return number + "nd";
  81                  case  3: return number + "rd";
  82                  default: return number + "th";
  83              }
  84          }
  85      },
  86      pluralize: function(word) {
  87          for (var i = 0; i < Inflector.Inflections.uncountable.length; i++) {
  88              var uncountable = Inflector.Inflections.uncountable[i];
  89              if (word.toLowerCase == uncountable) {
  90                  return uncountable;
  91              }
  92          }
  93          for (var i = 0; i < Inflector.Inflections.irregular.length; i++) {
  94              var singular = Inflector.Inflections.irregular[i][0];
  95              var plural   = Inflector.Inflections.irregular[i][1];
  96              if ((word.toLowerCase == singular) || (word == plural)) {
  97                  return plural;
  98              }
  99          }
 100          for (var i = 0; i < Inflector.Inflections.plural.length; i++) {
 101              var regex          = Inflector.Inflections.plural[i][0];
 102              var replace_string = Inflector.Inflections.plural[i][1];
 103              if (regex.test(word)) {
 104                  return word.replace(regex, replace_string);
 105              }
 106          }
 107      }
 108  }
 109  
 110  function ordinalize(number) {
 111      return Inflector.ordinalize(number);
 112  }
 113  
 114  /*
 115   * Javascript doesn't have optional parameters or overloading so I had to use
 116   * the ever popular pseudo options hash object technique.
 117   * required properties:
 118   *     count    Number of objects to pluralize
 119   *     singular Singular noun for the objects
 120   * optional property:
 121   *     plural   Plural (probably irregular) noun for the objects
 122   * examples:
 123   *      pluralize({ count: total_count, singular: "Issue" })
 124   *      pluralize({ count: total_count, singular: "Goose", plural: "Geese" })
 125   */
 126  function pluralize(options) {
 127      return options.count + " " + (1 == parseInt(options.count) ?
 128          options.singular :
 129          options.plural || Inflector.pluralize(options.singular));
 130  }