Multilingual processing library in PHP8.0: Gettext

When developing multi-language web applications, how to manage string translation is a common problem. If we use PHP as a development language, the Gettext library is a very useful tool. Gettext is a comprehensive internationalization and localization (i18n) system whose most basic functionality is managing multilingual strings in applications. In the PHP8.0 version, Gettext has been updated and upgraded. This article will introduce its related contents.

What is Gettext?

Gettext is a GNU free software internationalization and localization development library. It is a collection of reusable tools that can easily translate applications into multiple languages ​​when developing multilingual applications. In PHP, Gettext uses the interface of the C language gettex function library.

Gettext implementation principle

Gettext organizes strings in the application as entries into a separate database file and is used to translate these strings into different languages. This independent database is called the "translation domain" and contains all translated strings and their translated text.

In PHP, the Gettext library accesses entries in the translation field through a specific function __ (double underscore). The parameters of this function include the name of the translation domain and the original string to be translated. Gettext will translate the original string into the target language based on the user's locale and available translation files.

Using Gettext

In PHP8.0, the method of using Gettext to handle multiple languages ​​has not changed much from before. The following are the basic steps for using the Gettext library:

1. First, you need to install the PHP Gettext extension, which can be installed by downloading the installation package at https://pecl.php.net/package/gettext.
2. Convert all strings that need to be translated into Gettext entries and save them to the Gettext translation file. A translation file is a special text file that contains all the translations related to a specific language. This translation file can be created using command line tools.
3. In PHP code, use the __ function to access the string in the Gettext translation field.
4. At runtime, the system will automatically select the translation file corresponding to the local language to translate the corresponding string.

The following is a simple code example:

// Load all translation entries into the Gettext translation domain
$domain = 'messages';
$locale = 'zh_CN';
$directory = dirname(__FILE__) . '/locale';
bindtextdomain($domain, $directory);
textdomain($domain);
bind_textdomain_codeset($domain, 'UTF-8');

//Use the __ function to translate the string that needs to be translated
echo __("Hello, world!");

If you run the above code, the system will read the Gettext translation file corresponding to the user's local language and translate the string "Hello, world!" into the corresponding language.

Summary

Gettext is an easy-to-use multilingual processing library. Using Gettext in PHP can easily manage multilingual strings and translate applications into different languages. In PHP8.0, Gettext has been updated and upgraded, providing developers with better internationalization and localization support. We hope that the introduction in this article can help readers better understand and apply the Gettext library.

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