Question

I am trying to localize an existing cakephp application. For the most part I have it working the way I want but there is one scenario I can’t figure out.

I am using the form helper to create a form like this:

echo $this->Form->create('search', array('url' => 
     array('controller' => '/', 
           'action' => '/search/searcher'),
           'onsubmit'=>'return checkForm();', 
           'class'=>'find-form'));
echo '<fieldset>';
echo $this->Form->input('name', array(
             'type'=>'hidden', 
             'div'=>false, 
             'id'=>'name', 
             'class'=>'nice', 
             'label'=>false,
             'value'=>''
             ));

echo $this->Form->input('myvalue', array(
             'type'=>'text',
             'div'=>false,
             'id'=>'searchval',
             'class'=>'nice',
             'value'=> __('Enter search string'),
             'label'=>false));

The problem is with the line:

 'value'=> __('Enter search string'),

The resulting html looks like this:

 ...
 <fieldset>
   <input type="hidden" name="data[search][name]" 
      id="name" value="" />
   Enter Search String
   <input name="data[search][myvalue]" 
             type="text" 
             id="searchval" 
             class="nice"

       and so on.

The value “Enter Search String” is translated properly but it is outside of the input tag so it shows up outside of the search box.

I’ve tried various permutations of the code like:

 'value'=> echo __('Enter search string'),
 'value'=> `__('Enter search string')`,

And nothing seems to work. As I said it works in other areas of the view (in as an array value though) but I can’t get this one working.

BTW, the code before I started looked like this:

 'value'=> 'Enter search string',

Any ideas?

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

In CakePHP 1.x the __() function echoes the content by default, while in this case you only want to store it. You can use the second argument to return rather than echo the contents, like this:

'value' => __('Enter search string', true),

From CakePHP 2.0 on upwards you should no longer have to do this, as it returns by default.