Question

I’m using Codeigniter 2.0.1 and I’d like to put an variable in a language line. For example: if an user wants to register an account, and that username already exists I would like to put in my language line “This username $username is alrady in use”. I saw in the validation error language lines that they used %s as variable. But if I put this in my custom authentication error lang file I just get a plain %s instead of a variable.

Answer 1

It doen’t look like it is possible with the default Lang class. Personally I did it that way.

First a i18n_helper :

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

if ( ! function_exists('line_with_arguments'))
{
    function line_with_arguments($line, $swap)
    {
        return str_replace('%s', $swap, $line);
    }
}

and then I call it in my controller :

<?php
class Home extends CI_Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        $this->lang->load('test', 'english');
        $this->load->helper('i18n');

        echo line_with_arguments($this->lang->line('test'), 'Matt');
    }
}

and my lang file :

<?php
$lang['test'] = 'Hello %s';