Question

I am currently working on a website which will be international, so it needs to come with different languages.

I have a folder named “lang” with files such as en.php, no.php, and so on.. The files consist of an array with different words.

My question is how i should use this. Should i save the language in the persons computer with cookies? Or should I save the ip adress and assign a language to it and save it in the database, or should i pass a &land=en parameter in the url all over the website?

Any ideas and thoughts about how one should handle multilanguage websites?

Best of regarsds,
Alexander

Answer 1

I think it is probably best to save the user’s language in a cookie, so you do not need to pass it around via a querystring parameter. You may also set it in $_SESSION However, you should accept a lang= parameter in each page, which would allow any user to change language easily and instantly. The new language should then overwrite the existing cookie.

$valid_langs = array('en','fr','de','no');
if (isset($_GET['lang'])) {
  // verify that it is a valid language choice before attempting to use it
  // you may store an array of possibilities.

  if (in_array($_GET['lang'], $valid_langs)) {
    $language = $_GET['lang'];
    setcookie('lang', $_GET['lang']);
  }
}
else if (isset($_COOKIE['lang'])) {

  // also be sure to check that the language is a valid choice in a cookie too.
  if (in_array($_GET['lang'], $valid_langs)) {
    $language = $_COOKIE['lang'];
  }
}