CodeIgniter - Internationalization


Internationalization

The  language  class  in  CodeIgniter  provides  an  easy  way  to  support  multiple  languages for  internationalization.  To  some  extent,  we  can  use  different  language  files  to  display text in many different languages.
We  can  put  different  language  files  in  application/language  directory.  System  language files  can  be  found  at  system/language  directory,  but  to  add  your  own  language  to  your application,      you      should      create      a      separate      folder      for      each      language      in application/language directory.
Creating Language files
To  create  a  language  file,  you  must  end  it  with  _lang.php.  For  example,  you  want  to create     a     language     file     for     French     language,     then     you     must     save     it     with french_lang.php.  Within  this  file  you  can  store  all  your  language  texts  in  key,  value combination in $lang array as shown below.
$lang[ŧkeyŨ] = ŧvalŨ;

Loading Language file

To  use  any  of  the  language  in  your  application,  you  must  first  load  the  file  of  that particular language  to  retrieve  various  texts  stored  in  that  file.  You  can  use the  following code to load the language file.

$this->lang->load('filename',  'language');

·filename  – It is the name of file you want to load. Don’t use extension of file
here but only name of file.
·Language – It is the language set containing it.
Fetching Language Text

To fetch a line from the language file simply execute the following code.
$this->lang->line('language_key');

Where  language_key  is  the  key  parameter  used  to  fetch  value  of  the  key  in  the  loaded language file.

Autoload Languages
If  you  need  some  language  globally,  then  you can autoload it in

application/config/autoload.php file as shown below.


Simply, pass the different languages to be autoloaded by CodeIgniter.

Example

Create  a  controller  called  Lang_controller.php and save it in application/controller/Lang_controller.php

<?php
class  Lang_controller  extends  CI_Controller  {
public  function  index()
{
//Load  form  helper
$this->load->helper('form');
//Get  the  selected  language
$language  =  $this->input->post('language');
//Choose  language  file  according  to  selected  lanaguage if($language  ==  "french")
$this->lang->load('french_lang','french'); else  if($language  ==  "german")
$this->lang->load('german_lang','german');
else
$this->lang->load('english_lang','english');
//Fetch  the  message  from  language  file.
$data['msg']  =  $this->lang->line('msg');

$data['language']  =  $language;
//Load  the  view  file
$this->load->view('lang_view',$data);
}
}

?>


Create    a    view    file    called    lang_view.php    and    save    it    at    application/views/ lang_view.php

<!DOCTYPE  html>
<html  lang="en">
<head>
<meta  charset="utf-8">
<title>CodeIgniter  Internationalization  Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
echo  form_open('/lang');
?>
<select  name="language"  onchange="javascript:this.form.submit();">
<?php
$lang  = array('english'=>"English",'french'=>"French",'german'=>"German");
foreach($lang  as  $key=>$val)
{
if($key  ==  $language)
echo  "<option  value='".$key."' selected>".$val."</option>";
else
echo  "<option  value='".$key."'>".$val."</option>";
}
?>
</select>
<br>
<?php

form_close(); echo  $msg;
?>
</body>

</html>

Create  three  folders  called  English,  French,  and  German  in  application/language  as shown in the figure below.


Copy  the  below  given  code and  save  it  in  english_lang.php  file  in application/language/english folder.

<?php
$lang['msg']  =  "CodeIgniter  Internationalization  example.";

?>

Copy  the  below  given  code  and  save  it  in  french_lang.php  file  in

application/language/French folder.

<?php
$lang['msg']  =  "Exemple  CodeIgniter  internationalisation.";

?>

Copy  the  below  given  code  and  save  it  in  german_lang.php  file  in

application/language/german folder.

<?php
$lang['msg']  =  "CodeIgniter  Internationalisierung  Beispiel.";

?>

Change  the  routes.php  file  in  application/config/routes.php  to  add  route  for  the above controller and add the following line at the end of the file.
$route['lang']  =  "Lang_controller";

Execute the following URL in the browser to execute the above  example.

It   will   produce   an   output   as   shown   in   the   following   screenshot.   If   you   change   the language in  the  dropdown  list,  the language  of  the  sentence written  below  the  dropdown will also change accordingly.




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