the best way to make codeigniter website multi-language. calling from lang arrays depends on lang session?

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I'm researching hours and hours, but I could not find any clear, efficient way to make it :/

I have a codeigniter base website in English and I have to add a Polish language now. What is the best way to make my site in 2 language depending visitor selection?

is there any way to create array files for each language and call them in view files depends on Session from lang selection? I don't wanna use database.

Appreciate helps! I'm running out of deadline :/ thanks!!

11 Answers

In the controller add following lines when you make the cunstructor

i.e, after

parent::Controller();

add below lines

    $this->load->helper('lang_translate');
    $this->lang->load('nl_site', 'nl'); // ('filename', 'directory')

create helper file lang_translate_helper.php with following function and put it in directory system\application\helpers

function label($label, $obj)
{
    $return = $obj->lang->line($label);
    if($return)
        echo $return;
    else
        echo $label;
}

for each of the language, create a directory with language abbrevation like en, nl, fr, etc., under system\application\languages

create language file in above (respective) directory which will contain $lang array holding pairs label=>language_value as given below

nl_site_lang.php

$lang['welcome'] = 'Welkom';
$lang['hello word'] = 'worde Witaj';

en_site_lang.php

$lang['welcome'] = 'Welcome';
$lang['hello word'] = 'Hello Word';

you can store multiple files for same language with differently as per the requirement e.g, if you want separate language file for managing backend (administrator section) you can use it in controller as $this->lang->load('nl_admin', 'nl');

nl_admin_lang.php

$lang['welcome'] = 'Welkom';
$lang['hello word'] = 'worde Witaj';

and finally to print the label in desired language, access labels as below in view

label('welcome', $this);

OR

label('hello word', $this);

note the space in hello & word you can use it like this way as well :)

whene there is no lable defined in the language file, it will simply print it what you passed to the function label.

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