I’ve decided that I should probably start sharing the libraries I’ve created that I find very useful. So, I’ll start with my Language library. Here’s a few reasons why it’s better than the native version.
- Developing multi-lingual sites, the prospect of doing $this->lang->line(); for hundreds of language strings was daunting. With this library, one call gets all your language strings, or individual ones if you like.
- You can create a set of “common” language strings that you reuse throughout your application, so you aren’t repeating strings in different files.
- You do not have to separate between different languages with folders. Instead, you put related language strings in a single file, and using arrays, you distinguish between the different language versions of a string.
- You can switch between languages on-the-fly.
<?php if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
/**
* If you don't mind, keep this block of text up here if you use this library. Thanks!
*
* Author: Scott Winfield
* <a href="http://www.palidia.com">http://www.palidia.com</a> */
class Lang
{
private $defaultLang = 'en';
private $language = 'en';
private $positions = array('en' => 0, 'fr' => 1); // Position of the language string within the array
private $varPrefix = 'lang_';
private $data;
/* Get all the language strings from a file */
public function getKeys ( $file, $language = null )
{
if (isset($language))
{
$this->setLanguage($language);
}
require(APPPATH . 'language/' . $file . '.php');
$this->getLangStrings($lang);
return $this->data;
}
/* Get all the commonly-used language strings */
public function getCommonKeys()
{
require(APPPATH . 'language/Common.php');
$this->getLangStrings($lang);
return $this->data;
}
/* Get a specific key from a file */
public function getKey ( $key, $file )
{
require(APPPATH . 'language/' . $file . '.php');
return $this->getCorrectString($lang[$key]);
}
public function setLanguage ( $language )
{
$this->language = $language;
}
public function getLanguage()
{
return $this->language;
}
/* Walk through the $lang var and pull out the strings */
private function getLangStrings ( $lang )
{
foreach ($lang AS $name => $strings)
{
$this->data[$this->varPrefix . $name] = $this->getCorrectString($strings);
}
}
/* Get the correct, language-sensitive string */
private function getCorrectString ( $strings )
{
// Make sure you've got a valid string in the current language
if (isset($strings[$this->positions[$this->language]]))
{
return $strings[$this->positions[$this->language]];
}
// Otherwise, return the default language string
return $strings[$this->positions[$this->defaultLang]];
}
}
?>Usage:
// Load the library
$this->load->library('Lang');// Getting all language strings
$strings = $this->lang->getKeys('filename', 'optional language');// Get common language strings
$strings = $this->lang->getCommonKeys();// Change the current language
$this->lang->setLanguage('en');
And your language file would look like this (under application/language/file.php):
$lang['email'] = array('English string', 'French String', 'Spanish String', 'etc');
$lang['phone'] = array('Phone', 'Phone', 'etc.');Now you can have your translated strings side-by-side for easy editing and viewing. If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, enjoy 😊