Reading about Kohana templates and saw soemthing I've never seen before:
$this->template->title = __('Welcome To Acme Widgets');
What does __('Text') mean? What is it? What does it do?
views:
380answers:
4
+1
A:
It means someone created a function named __ (That's two underscores next to one another.)
My guess is it defined somewhere in the Kohana documentation.
jmucchiello
2010-03-11 17:27:51
-1 useless answer
Adriano Varoli Piazza
2010-03-11 17:29:50
He asked what does it mean. That implies to me he doesn't know it is function call. YMMV.
jmucchiello
2010-03-11 17:34:40
@Adriano I disagree, the question at least seems to suppose this is something *other* than a function. Just like $ in jQuery, this is a weird function name that may be confused as something else.
Tim Lytle
2010-03-11 17:36:42
+1, not entirely useless and I agree with Tim Lytle. I'd only be upset if this was accepted over the other *finer* answers.
alex
2010-07-22 00:37:42
+3
A:
It's string gettext ( string $message ): http://php.net/manual/en/function.gettext.php
Returns a translated string if one is found in the translation table, or the submitted message if not found.
The __() is just an alias for it. So __("some text") is equivalent to gettext("some text")
edit: Actually if it's two underscores than it isn't gettext(). The alias for gettext() is one underscore.
Second edit: It looks like __() might be another alias for gettext(). With a slightly different meaning from _(). See here: http://groups.google.com/group/cake-php/browse_thread/thread/9f501e31a4d4130d?pli=1
Third and final edit: Here's an article explaining it in more detail. Looks like it isn't a built in function, but rather something that is commonly added in a lot of frameworks. It is essentially an alias of gettext - it performs the same function. However, it isn't a direct alias (I don't think). It is implemented in and is specific to the framework. It searches for and returns a localization or translation of the string it is given. For more, see this blog post: http://www.eatmybusiness.com/food/2007/04/13/what-on-earth-does-a-double-underscore-then-parenthesis-mean-in-php-__/7/
Daniel Bingham
2010-03-11 17:28:07
I didn't know that. But the question asks about the function "two underscores".
jmucchiello
2010-03-11 17:29:43
@T.J. Crowder Yeah, my first search turned up that article and I didn't notice that it was only one and not two. However, on a second search it looks like it does basically the same thing. Just implemented specific to the framework.
Daniel Bingham
2010-03-11 17:37:25
I suspect the framework reimplement it so you don't need to mess around with configuring gettext on top of configuring the framework.
jmucchiello
2010-03-11 18:02:35
+3
A:
The double '__' is used for Localization in CakePHP (and possible other framewokrs)
Vals
2010-03-11 17:31:00
+7
A:
In Kohana (version 3) the function is defined in system/base.php and is a convenience function to aid (as the other answers have mentioned) internationalization. You provide a string (with, optionally, some placeholders to substitute values into the finished text) which is then interpreted and, if required, a translation is is returned.
Contrary to assumptions in other answers, this does not use gettext.
A very basic example would be (this particular string is already translated into English, Spanish and French in Kohana):
// 1. In your bootstrap.php somewhere below the Kohana::init line
I18n::lang('fr');
// 2. In a view
echo __("Hello, world!"); // Bonjour, monde!
salathe
2010-03-11 19:12:56