Localizing strings with gettext

GNU gettext is an extension within PHP that must be included at the php.ini:

extension=php_gettext.dll #Windowsextension=gettext.so #Linux

The gettext functions implement an NLS (Native Language Support) API which can be used to internationalize your PHP applications.

Translating strings can be done in PHP by setting the locale, setting up your translation tables and calling gettext() on any string you want to translate.

<?php
// Set language to French
putenv('LC_ALL=    fr_FR');
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'fr_FR');

// Specify location of translation tables for 'myPHPApp' domain
bindtextdomain("myPHPApp", "./locale");

// Select 'myPHPApp' domain
textdomain("myPHPApp");

myPHPApp.po

#: /Hello_world.php:56
msgid "Hello"
msgstr "Bonjour"

#: /Hello_world.php:242
msgid "How are you?"
msgstr "Comment allez-vous?"

gettext() loads a given post-complied .po file, a .mo. which maps your to-be translated strings as above.

After this small bit of setup code, translations will now be looked for in the following file:

./locale/fr_FR/LC_MESSAGES/myPHPApp.mo.

Whenever you call gettext('some string'), if 'some string' has been translated in the .mo file, the translation will be returned. Otherwise, 'some string' will be returned untranslated.

// Print the translated version of 'Welcome to My PHP Application'
echo gettext("Welcome to My PHP Application");

// Or use the alias _() for gettext()
echo _("Have a nice day");

Found a mistake? Have a question or improvement idea? Let me know.

Localization:

* Localization

* Localizing strings with gettext

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0 Getting started

1 Variables

2 Arrays

3 Functional programming

4 Types

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7 Working with dates and time

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35 UTF-8

36 URLs

37 Object serialization

38 PHPDoc

39 Contributing to PHP Manual

40 String parsing

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44 Closur

45 Reading request data

46 Type juggling and non-strict comparison issues

47 Security

48 PHP MySQLi

49 Command Line Interface CLI

50 Localization

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54 Variable scope

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57 Installing PHP on Windows

58 DateTime class

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62 Installing on Linux / Unix

63 Contributing to PHP Core

64 Coding conventions

65 Using MongoDB

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68 Unicode Support

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84 Outputting the value of a variable

85 String formatting

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87 MongoDB

88 Manipulating an array

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91 SPL data structures

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99 BC Math Binary Calculator

100 Docker deployment

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104 Secure remember me

105 PHP mysqli

106 PHP built-in server

107 How to break down an URL

108 PSR

109 Contributors