R – How to implement a language translation module in php

multilingualtranslation

Which is the best way of implementing a language translation for mutli -lang site.
I have two methods, i.e.

1) Just put all the static text contents in the pages to database ie a database driven programing style

$translation('register_form');
<form >
 <input name="search" >
</form>

some sort of transltion.

2) is in like wordpress .mo files method.

I want to know more about that kind of translation , how it works with .mo like files…

or any other better way to make a translation module.

Best Solution

For .mo file support, check out the gettext functions, and look at the original GNU gettext documentation.

In a nutshell, anytime you use natural language, you wrap in a call to _() (an alias for gettext)

echo _("Hello world");

Once all your sources are doing this, run the GNU Xgettext tool to build a .pot file, which forms the "template" for your language translations. For each desired language, you'd merge this .pot file into an individual .po file for each language. The merge operation, again provided by xgettext, ensures you update the file with new strings, without losing any existing translations.

These .po files get sent to your translators, who might use a tool like poedit to provide the translation. When the .po file comes back, you can generate the binary .mo file which is used by gettext.

There are also classes in the Zend Framework which provide more facilities beyond this too, e.g. more file formats, and detection and selection of user preferred language in HTTP headers.

Related Solutions

How to build a multi-language web site

Warning: I'm not a java hacker, so YMMV but...

The problem with using a list of "properties" is that you need a lot of discipline. Every time you add a string that should be output to the user you will need to open your properties file, look to see if that string (or something roughly equivalent to it) is already in the file, and then go and add the new property if it isn't. On top of this, you'd have to hope the properties file was fairly human readable / editable if you wanted to give it to an external translation team to deal with.

The database based approach is useful for all your database based content. Ideally you want to make it easy to tie pieces of content together with their translations. It only really falls down for all the places you may want to output something that isn't out of a database (error messages etc.).

One fairly old technology which we find still works really well, is to use gettext. Gettext or some variant seems to be available for most languages and platforms. The basic premise is that you wrap your output in a special function call like so:

echo _("Please do not press this button again");

Then running the gettext tools over your source code will extract all the instances wrapped like that into a "po" file. This will contain entries such as:

#: myfolder/my.source:239
msgid "Please do not press this button again"
msgstr ""

And you can add your translation to the appropriate place:

#: myfolder/my.source:239
msgid "Please do not press this button again"
msgstr "s’il vous plaît ne pas appuyer sur le bouton ci-dessous à nouveau"

Subsequent runs of the gettext tools simply update your po files. You don't even need to extract the po file from your source. If you know you may want to translate your site down the line, then you can just use the format shown above (the underscored function) with all your output. If you don't provide a po file it will just return whatever you put in the quotes. gettext is designed to work with locales so the users locale is used to retrieve the appropriate po file. This makes it really easy to add new translations.

Gettext Pros

Doesn't get in your way while coding
Very easy to add translations
PO files can be compiled down for speed
There are libraries available for most languages / platforms
There are good cross platform tools for dealing with translations. It is actually possible to get your translation team set up with a tool such as poEdit to make it very easy for them to manage translation projects

Gettext Cons

Solves your site "furniture" needs, but you would usually still want a database based approach for your database driven content

For more info on gettext see this wikipedia page

Codeigniter – the best way to make codeigniter website multi-language. calling from lang arrays depends on lang session

Have you seen CodeIgniter's Language library?

The Language Class provides functions to retrieve language files and lines of text for purposes of internationalization.

In your CodeIgniter system folder you'll find one called language containing sets of language files. You can create your own language files as needed in order to display error and other messages in other languages.

Language files are typically stored in your system/language directory. Alternately you can create a folder called language inside your application folder and store them there. CodeIgniter will look first in your application/language directory. If the directory does not exist or the specified language is not located there CI will instead look in your global system/language folder.

In your case...

you need to create a polish_lang.php and english_lang.php inside application/language/polish
then create your keys inside that file (e.g. $lang['hello'] = "Witaj";
then load it in your controller like $this->lang->load('polish_lang', 'polish');
then fetch the line like $this->lang->line('hello'); Just store the return value of this function in a variable so you can use it in your view.

Repeat the steps for the english language and all other languages you need.