Question

I am working on multilingual application with a centralized language system. It’s based on language files for each language and a simple helper function:

en.php

$lang['access_denied'] = "Access denied.";
$lang['action-required'] = "You need to choose an action.";
...
return $lang;

language_helper.php

...
function __($line) {
  return $lang[$line];
}

Up til now, all strings were system messages addressed to the current user, hence I always could do it that way. Now, I need create other messages, where the string should depend on a dynamic value. E.g. in a template file I want to echo the number of action points. If the user only has 1 point, it should echo “You have 1 point.”; but for zero or more than 1 point it should be “You have 12 points.”

For substitution purposes (both strings and numbers) I created a new function

function __s($line, $subs = array()) {
  $text = $lang[$line];
  while (count($subs) > 0) {
    $text = preg_replace('/%s/', array_shift($subs), $text, 1);
  }
  return $text;
}

Call to function looks like __s('current_points', array($points)).

$lang['current_points'] in this case would be "You have %s point(s).", which works well.

Taking it a step further, I want to get rid of the “(s)” part. So I created yet another function

function __c($line, $subs = array()) {
  $text = $lang[$line];
  $text = (isset($sub[0] && $sub[0] == 1) ? $text[0] : $text[1];
  while (count($subs) > 0) {
    $text = preg_replace('/%d/', array_shift($subs), $text, 1);
  }
  return $text;
}

Call to function looks still like __s('current_points', array($points)).

$lang['current_points'] is now array("You have %d point.","You have %d points.").

How would I now combine these two functions. E.g. if I want to print the username along with the points (like in a ranking). The function call would be something like __x('current_points', array($username,$points)) with $lang['current_points'] being array("$s has %d point.","%s has %d points.").

I tried to employ preg_replace_callback() but I am having trouble passing the substitute values to that callback function.

$text = preg_replace_callback('/%([sd])/', 
  create_function(
    '$type',
    'switch($type) {
      case "s": return array_shift($subs); break;
      case "d": return array_shift($subs); break;
    }'),
  $text);

Apparently, $subs is not defined as I am getting “out of memory” errors as if the function is not leaving the while loop.

Could anyone point me in the right direction? There’s probably a complete different (and better) way to approach this problem. Also, I still want to expand it like this:

$lang['invite_party'] = "%u invited you to $g party."; should become Adam invited you to his party." for males and "Betty invited you to her party." for females. The passed $subs value for both $u and $g would be an user object.

Answer 1

As mentionned by comments, I guess gettext() is an alternative

However if you need an alternative approach, here is a workaround

class ll
{
    private $lang = array(),
            $langFuncs = array(),
            $langFlags = array();

    function __construct()
    {
        $this->lang['access'] = 'Access denied';
        $this->lang['points'] = 'You have %s point{{s|}}';
        $this->lang['party'] = 'A %s invited you to {{his|her}} parteh !';
        $this->lang['toto'] = 'This glass seems %s, {{no one drank in already|someone came here !}}';

        $this->langFuncs['count'] = function($in) { return ($in>1)?true:false; };
        $this->langFuncs['gender'] = function($in) { return (strtolower($in)=='male')?true:false; };
        $this->langFuncs['emptfull'] = function($in) { return ($in=='empty')?true:false; };

        $this->langFlags['points'] = 'count';
        $this->langFlags['toto'] = 'emptfull';
        $this->langFlags['party'] = 'gender';
    }

    public function __($type,$param=null)
    {
        if (isset($this->langFlags[$type])) {
            $f = $this->lang[$type];
            preg_match("/{{(.*?)}}/",$f,$m);

            list ($ifTrue,$ifFalse) = explode("|",$m[1]);

            if($this->langFuncs[$this->langFlags[$type]]($param)) {
                return $this->__s(preg_replace("/{{(.*?)}}/",$ifTrue,$this->lang[$type]),$param);
            } else {
                return $this->__s(preg_replace("/{{(.*?)}}/",$ifFalse,$this->lang[$type]),$param);
            }
        } else {
            return $this->__s($this->lang[$type],$param);
        }
    }
    private function __s($s,$i=null)
    {
        return str_replace("%s",$i,$s);
    }
}

$ll = new ll();

echo "Call : access - NULL\n";
echo $ll->__('access'),"\n\n";
echo "Call : points - 1\n";
echo $ll->__('points',1),"\n\n";
echo "Call : points - 175\n";
echo $ll->__('points',175),"\n\n";
echo "Call : party - Male\n";
echo $ll->__('party','Male'),"\n\n";
echo "Call : party - Female\n";
echo $ll->__('party','Female'),"\n\n";
echo "Call : toto - empty\n";
echo $ll->__('toto','empty'),"\n\n";
echo "Call : toto - full\n";
echo $ll->__('toto','full');

This outputs

Call : access - NULL
Access denied

Call : points - 1
You have 1 point

Call : points - 175
You have 175 points

Call : party - Male
A Male invited you to his parteh !

Call : party - Female
A Female invited you to her parteh !

Call : toto - empty
This glass seems empty, no one drank in already

Call : toto - full
This glass seems full, someone came here !

This may give you an idea on how you could centralize your language possibilities, creating your own functions to resolve one or another text.

Hope this helps you.