Question

I’m posting this question on it’s own as I found post one which lacks full explanation or the best way to do it.

Should I use a language file to name items like:

$first_name= ‘name’; $last_name = ‘last_name’;

and then include this file depending on selection?

I have an app which I need to have in two languages.

Will like something in this lines:

http://www.myapp.com/?lang=en http://www.myapp.com/?lang=es

Should I use a constants file for this purpose?

constants.php

define(‘OPERATION_NOT_ALLOWED_EN’, ‘This operation is not allowed!’);

define(‘OPERATION_NOT_ALLOWED_ES’, ‘This operation is not allowed!’);

What is the recommended way of accomplishing this?

Answer 1

You can follow in the footsteps of phpBB – they use a $lang[] array with code that looks like:

$lang['Next'] = 'Next'; $lang['Previous'] = 'Previous'; $lang['Goto_page'] = 'Goto page'; $lang['Joined'] = 'Joined'; $lang['IP_Address'] = 'IP Address';  $lang['Select_forum'] = 'Select a forum'; $lang['View_latest_post'] = 'View latest post'; $lang['View_newest_post'] = 'View newest post'; $lang['Page_of'] = 'Page <b>%d</b> of <b>%d</b>'; // Replaces with: Page 1 of 2 for example  $lang['ICQ'] = 'ICQ Number'; $lang['AIM'] = 'AIM Address'; $lang['MSNM'] = 'MSN Messenger'; $lang['YIM'] = 'Yahoo Messenger'; 

It is of course included from a file specified in the user’s settings, but you’d be fine with your suggestion of ?lang=en in the query string accessing something similar to a constants.php file.

You might want to name the file lang_en.php or something similar for clarity.