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Alright, so I'm forced to create a multi-language support site in 4 languages (Greek, French, English and German). I have some ideas on how to set it up, although I would like a second opinion on this.
The first option is to include the file based on the user's settings.
/*
------------------
Language: English in ENGLISH.PHP
------------------
*/
$lang['TITLE'] = 'My website page title';
$lang['HOME'] = 'Home';
/*
------------------
Language: French in FRENCH.PHP
------------------
*/
$lang['TITLE'] = 'Titre site-web';
$lang['HOME'] = 'Accueil';
The file would be included accordingly: include_once 'ENGLISH.PHP'; etc.
The other option is to create one general file, but have the language output in an array:
$lang = array("en"=> array("TITLE"=>'My website page title',
"HOME" =>'Home'),
"fr"=> array("TITLE"=>'Titre site-web',
"HOME" =>'Accueil'));
$set = $USER_INFO->langPref(); // output: en, fr, gr, de
echo $lang[$set]['TITLE'];
The second option seems easier to manage, but I'm not sure if there are any drawbacks to this method...
Any opinions?
By the way, I was planning on translating everything myself.
</div>
You can used .ini to store language:
set = $USER_INFO->langPref();
if(file_exists("PATH_TO_FOLDER_LANGUAGE/".$set.'.ini')){
$arrLanguage= parse_ini_file("PATH_TO_FOLDER_LANGUAGE/".$set.'.ini');
}else{
$arrLanguage = array();
echo "Language file not found";
}
print_r($arrLanguage);
in ini file, it will be same:
TITLE=Titre site-web
HOME=Accueil'
read more about init file at here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INI_file
Hope it can help you!
Don't waste your time, use a framework, Symfony2 for example has a excellent internationalization component:
http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/intl.html
or CakePHP, even easier =)
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/internationalization-and-localization.html
but...if you really...really want to do from scratch =) I recommend you to use something like .po files, here you are some article that could help; http://www.icanlocalize.com/site/tutorials/how-to-translate-with-gettext-po-and-pot-files/
I strongly recommend the use of a framework or even a CMS has this functionality built in...
I hope this can help.