Internationalization (i18n) library for CodeIgniter 2

What it does

Language in URL:

• maestric.com/en/about
• maestric.com/fr/about

Keep using CodeIgniter Language Class

Example

View

<p><?=lang('about.gender')?></p>

English language file

$lang['about.gender'] = "I'm a man";

French language file

$lang['about.gender'] = "Je suis un homme";

Result with maestric.com/en/about

<p>I'm a man</p>

Result with maestric.com/fr/about

<p>Je suis un homme</p>

Installation

• Download ci_i18n_library.zip (if using Codeigniter 1.7, see previous version)
• Put MY_Lang.php and MY_Config.php in application/core

Configuration

In application/config/routes.php add

// example: '/en/about' -> use controller 'about'
$route['^fr/(.+)$'] = "$1";
$route['^en/(.+)$'] = "$1";
 
// '/en' and '/fr' -> use default controller
$route['^fr$'] = $route['default_controller'];
$route['^en$'] = $route['default_controller'];

Use

Let's build a bilingual English/French page.

language files

application/language/english/about_lang.php

<?php
 
$lang['about.gender'] = "I'm a man";
 
/* End of file */

application/language/french/about_lang.php

<?php
 
$lang['about.gender'] = "Je suis un homme";
 
/* End of file */

controller

application/controllers/about.php

<?php
class About extends CI_Controller {
 
	function index()
	{
		// you might want to just autoload these two helpers
		$this->load->helper('language');
		$this->load->helper('url');
 
		// load language file
		$this->lang->load('about');
 
 
		$this->load->view('about');
	}
}
 
/* End of file */

view

application/views/about.php

<p><?=lang('about.gender')?></p>
 
<p><?=anchor('music','Shania Twain')?></p>

Test

http://your_base_url/en/about

<p>I'm a man</p>
 
<p><a href="http://mywebsite.com/en/music">Shania Twain</a></p>

http://your_base_url/fr/about

<p>Je suis un homme</p>
 
<p><a href="http://mywebsite.com/fr/music">Shania Twain</a></p>

Notes

• You might need to translate some of CodeIgniter's language files in system/language. Example: if you're using the “Form Validation” library for French pages, translate system/language/form_validation_lang.php to application/language/french/form_validation_lang.php.

• links to internal pages are prefixed by the current language, but links to files are not.

site_url('about/my_work');
// http://mywebsite.com/en/about/my_work
 
 
site_url('css/styles.css');
// http://mywebsite.com/css/styles.css

• Get the current language

$this->lang->lang();
// en

• Switch to another language

anchor($this->lang->switch_uri('fr'),'Display current page in French');

• the root page (/) is supposed to be some kind of splash page, without any specific language. This can be changed: see “No splash page” below.

How it works

MY_Config.php contains an override of site_url(): add language segment (when appropriate) to generated URLs. Also used by anchor(), form_open()...

Options

Special URIs

A special URI is not prefixed by a language. The root URI (/) is by default a special URI.

You might need other special URIs, like for an admin section in just one language.

In application/core/MY_Lang.php, add admin to the $special array. Now, links to admin won't be prefixed by the current language.

site_url('admin');
// http://mywebsite.com/admin

No splash page

In application/core/MY_Lang.php

• remove “” from the $special array
• set $default_uri to something else like home
• now a request to / will be redirected to en/home, if English is your default language
• the default language is the first item of the $languages array

Add a new language

• application/core/MY_Lang.php: add new language to $languages array

// example: German (de)
'de' => 'german',

• application/config/routes.php: add new routes

// example: German (de)
$route['^de/(.+)$'] = "$1"; 
$route['^de$'] = $route['default_controller'];

• create corresponding language folder in application/language. For this “German” example, it would be called german.

$this->lang->load('about', 'fr');

function site_url($uri = '')
 {
            
  if (is_array($uri))
  {
   $uri = implode('/', $uri);
  }
  
  if (function_exists('get_instance'))  
  {
   $CI =& get_instance();
                        $segment =  $CI->uri->segment(1);
                        if(!$CI->lang->is_special($segment))
   $uri = $CI->lang->localized($uri);   
  }

  return parent::site_url($uri);
 }

function site_url($uri = '')
 {
            
  if (is_array($uri))
  {
   $uri = implode('/', $uri);
  }
  
  if (function_exists('get_instance'))  
  {
   $CI =& get_instance();

                        $segment =  $CI->uri->segment(1);

                        if(!in_array($segment, $CI->lang->special))
   $uri = $CI->lang->localized($uri);
                        
  }

  return parent::site_url($uri);
 }

function default_lang()
{
if ( isset( $_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"] ) )
{
$languages = strtolower( $_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"] );

// $languages = ' fr-ch;q=0.3, da, en-us;q=0.8, en;q=0.5, fr;q=0.3';
// need to remove spaces from strings to avoid error
$languages = str_replace( ' ', '', $languages );
// we change ; to , to create an array where language codes doesn't have quality
$languages = str_replace( ';', ',', $languages );
$languages = explode( ",", $languages );


//find which language we should use
//the array will have some entries like q=0.5, but we don't care about
//them cause we're not going to find them in the languages array, so we don't
//need to waste time removing them
foreach ($languages as $lang)
{
if (isset($this->languages[$lang]))
return $lang;
}
}


foreach ($this->languages as $lang => $language)
{
return $lang;
}
}

$route['sitemap.xml'] = 'sitemap';

// special URIs (not localized)
var $special = array (
 "",
 "sitemap.xml"
);