Empty translation string causes deletion of other translation(s)

[bhr]

🐛 Bug Report

When t('') is used anywhere in code, other translations cannot be found/referenced by i18next-parser.

To Reproduce

return (
    <div className={clsx(style.root)}>
      <p>{t('TITLE')}</p>
      <p>
        {t('')}
        <Trans t={t} i18nKey="DESCRIPTION">
          Press <Button content={t('BUTTON_TITLE')} onClick={reset} plain underline /> to go back.
        </Trans>
      </p>
    </div>
  );

The key TITLE is removed form the translation.json

Expected behavior

The key TITLE should not be removed from the translation.json.

Fix / Workaround

Removing {t('')} fixes the issue. The TITLE key remains in the original translation

Your Environment

• runtime version: i.e. node 16
• i18next version: i.e. 5.3.0
• os: Mac

[justinbc820]

I experienced this same issue. It took a very long time to figure out why only half of my translations were showing up in the output file. It is due to src/helpers.js:35-41 which is this code.

  // There is no key to process so we return an empty object
  if (!key) {
    if (!target[entry.namespace]) {
      target[entry.namespace] = {}
    }
    return { target, duplicate, conflict }
  }

I don't understand why we would want to overwrite all previous translations just because there's an empty key. At the very least, keep old translations and just skip this key.

[karellm]

@justinbc820 Can you please make a PR to fix this?