Question

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HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE

i try to code a language option tool. therefor i use

$default_language = (strtolower($_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"]));

if (eregi('af', $default_language)) {do something}

now i would like to order the string when i will echo:

$_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"]

for example an user has specified a number of languages.

example for chrome with different languages:

 nl,en-gb;q=0.8,en;q=0.6,fr;q=0.4,fr-ca;q=0.2

so how can i read out the string to bring it in a certain order where i can see that nl is the first language that is prefered.

the code should be something like:

if ('nl'== array[0]) {do something}

so if there is someone who could help me out i really would appreciate.

thanks alot.

Answer 1

From HTTP/1.1 Header Field Definitions:

Each language-range MAY be given an associated quality value which represents an estimate of the user’s preference for the languages specified by that range. The quality value defaults to “q=1”.

You have to loop over languages and select one with highest quality (preferrence); like this:

$preferred = "en"; // default
if(isset($_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"]))
{
    $max   = 0.0;
    $langs = explode(",", $_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"]);
    foreach($langs as $lang)
    {
        $lang = explode(';', $lang);
        $q    = (isset($lang[1])) ? ((float) $lang[1]) : 1.0;
        if ($q > $max)
        {
            $max = $q;
            $preferred = $lang[0];
        }
    }
    $preferred = trim($preferred);
}
// now $preferred is user's preferred language

If Accept-Language header is not sent, all languages are equally acceptable.