php multilingual site

Question

Is it possible to create a multilingual site only in php without mysql (database)

a good resource will be nice to have please provide

Answer 1

Yes, of course it is possible. gettext is the tried and tested way of doing that:

http://us2.php.net/manual/en/book.gettext.php

http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.gettext.php

Bear in mind, gettext is not thread-safe. If that bothers you there is a Zend Framework Component called Zend_Translate which has a gettext adapter which is thread-safe:

http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.translate.adapter.html#zend.translate.adapter.gettext

Zend_Translate also has other adapters that do not rely on a database, such as:

• Zend_Translate_Adapter_Array (Store your text as native PHP arrays)
• Zend_Translate_Adapter_Csv (Store your text as Comma-Separated Values)

and many others.

Answer 2

I prefer more 'manual' way :-) Just include appropriate language file by analyzing cookie/session, and then use it on your template.

Answer 3

I have translations in XML file and they look like that:

English:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<language>
    <lang key="something">English 1</lang>
    <lang key="something2">English 2</lang>
</language>

German:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<language>
    <lang key="something">Deutsch 1</lang>
    <lang key="something2">Deutsch 2</lang>
</language>

So, the idea is keys in both files are the same, but node values are translated. In PHP, I have special object which loads XML file (resolve language from session, url or whatever and load en.xml or de.xml file). In code, I use $Language->get('something2') and text in right language is returned :)

Answer 4

The classical way is using arrays, spliced in separate files if they grow too big

<?php
$en = array( 
    'hello' => 'Hello World',
    'username' => 'Your Username'
);

$fr = array( 
    'hello' => 'Bonjour Monde',
    'username' => 'Votre Nom'
);

$current = ( $_GET['locale] === 'en')? $en : $fr;
echo $current['hello'];
?>

This is oversimplified, but the logic is correct.

I would also recomment Zend Translate, which implements all the backend solutions that I and the other users suggested in an OOP manner.