The next step is to use the adapter within your code. The example above shows some output with no support for translation. You probably write your code in your native language. Generally you need to translate not only the output, but also error and log messages. The next step is to integrate Zend Translate into your existing code. Of course it is much easier if you had already written your code with translation in mind, than changing your code afterwards. addTranslation('/path/to/translation/fr-source.mo', 'fr'); print $translate->_("Example") . "\n"; print "=======\n"; print $translate->_("Here is line one") . "\n"; printf($translate->_("Today is the %1\$s") . "\n", date('d.m.Y')); print "\n"; $translate->setLocale('fr'); print $translate->_("Here is line two") . "\n"; ]]> Now let's take a deeper look into what has been done and how to integrate Zend_Translate into your own code. Create a new Zend_Translate object and define the base adapter: In this example we chose the Gettext Adapter. We place our file source-de.mo into the directory /path/to/translation. The gettext file will have German translation included, and we also added another language source for French. The next step is to wrap all strings which are to be translated. The simplest approach is to have only simple strings or sentences like this: _("Example") . "\n"; print "=======\n"; print $translate->_("Here is line one") . "\n"; ]]> Some strings do not needed to be translated. The separating line is always a separating line, even in other languages. Having data values integrated into a translation string is also supported through the use of embedded parameters. _("Today is the %1\$s") . "\n", date("d.m.Y")); ]]> Instead of print(), use the printf() function and replace all parameters with %1\$s parts. The first is %1\$s, the second is %2\$s, and so on. This way a translation can be done without knowing the exact value. In our example, the date is always the actual day, but the string can be translated without the knowledge of the actual day. Each string is identified in the translation storage by a message ID. You can use message IDs instead of strings in your code, like this: _(1) . "\n"; print "=======\n"; print $translate->_(2) . "\n"; ]]> But doing this has several disadvantages: You can not see what your code should output just by viewing your code. Also you will have problems if some strings are not translated. You must always keep in mind how translation works. First Zend_Translate checks whether the specified language has a translation for the given message ID or string. If no translation string has been found it refers to the next lower level language as defined within Zend_Locale. So "de_AT" becomes "de" only. If there is no translation found for "de" either, then the original message is returned. This way you always have an output, even in case the message translation does not exist in your message storage. Zend_Translate never throws an error or exception when translating strings. Your next step is to create the translation sources for the languages you want to translate. Every adapter is created its own way as described here, but there are common features applicable for all adapters. You have to decide where to store your translation source files. Using Zend_Translate you are not restricted in any way. The following structures are preferable: Single structured source Positive: all source files for every languages are stored in one directory. No splitting of related files. Language structured source Positive: Every language is stored in their own directories. Easy translation, as every language team has to translate only one directory. Also the usage of multiple files is transparent. Application structured source Positive: all source files for every language are stored in one directory. No splitting of related files. Negative: having multiple files for the same language can be problematic. Gettext structured source Positive: existing gettext sources can be used without changing structure. Negative: having sub-sub directories may be confusing for people who have not used gettext before. File structured source Positive: translation files are localted near their source. Negative: too many and also small translation files result in being tendious to translate. Also every file has to be added as translation source. Single structured and language structured source files are most usable for Zend_Translate. So now, that we know which structure we want to have, we should create our translation source files. Array source files are plain arrays. But you have to define them manually since there is no tool to aid this. But because they are so simple, it's the fastest way to look up messages if your code works as expected. It's generally the best adapter to get started with translation business. 'message1', 'message2' => 'message2', 'message3' => 'message3'); $german = array( 'message1' => 'Nachricht1', 'message2' => 'Nachricht2', 'message3' => 'Nachricht3'); $translate = new Zend_Translate('array', $english, 'en'); $translate->addTranslation($deutsch, 'de'); ]]> Since release 1.5 it is also supported to have arrays included within an external file. You just have to provide the filename and Zend_Translate will automatically include it and look for the array. See the following example for details: 'Nachricht1', 'message2' => 'Nachricht2', 'message3' => 'Nachricht3'); // controller $translate = new Zend_Translate('array', '/path/to/myarray.php', 'de'); ]]> Files which do not return an array will fail to be included. Also any output within this file will be ignored and suppressed. Gettext source files are created by GNU's gettext library. There are several free tools available that can parse your code files and create the needed gettext source files. These have the extension *.mo and they are binary files. An open source tool for creating the files is poEdit. This tool also supports you during the translation process itself. addTranslation('/path/to/german.mo', 'de'); ]]> As you can see the adapters are used exactly the same way, with one small difference: change array to gettext. All other usages are exactly the same as with all other adapters. With the gettext adapter you no longer have to be aware of gettext's standard directory structure, bindtextdomain and textdomain. Just give the path and filename to the adapter. You should always use UTF-8 as source encoding. Otherwise you will have problems when using two different source encodings. E.g. one of your source files is encoded with ISO-8815-11 and another one with CP815. You can set only one encoding for your source file, so one of your languages probably will not display correctly. UTF-8 is a portable format which supports all languages. When using UTF-8 for all languages, you will eliminate the problem of incompatible encodings. Many gettext editors add adapter informations as empty translation string. This is the reason why empty strings are not translated when using the gettext adapter. Instead they are erased from the translation table and provided by the getAdapterInfo() method. It will return the adapter informations for all added gettext files as array using the filename as key. getAdapterInfo()); ]]> TMX source files are a new industry standard. They have the advantage of being XML files and so they are readable by every editor and of course by humans. You can either create TMX files manually with a text editor, or you can use a special tool. But most tools currently available for creating TMX source files are not freely available.

Nachricht1 message1 message2 Nachricht2 ]]> TMX files can have several languages within the same file. All other included languages are added automatically, so you do not have to call addLanguage(). If you want to have only specified languages from the source translated you can set the option 'defined_language' to true. With this option you can add the wished languages explicitly with addLanguage(). The default value for this option is to add all languages. CSV source files are small and human readable. If your customers want to translate their own, you will probably use the CSV adapter. addTranslation('path/to/other.csv', 'fr'); ]]> There are three different options for the CSV adapter. You can set 'delimiter', 'limit' and 'enclosure'. The default delimiter for CSV string is ';', but with the option 'delimiter' you can decide to use another one. The default limit for a line within a CSV file is '0'. This means that the end of a CSV line is searched automatically. If you set 'limit' to any value, then the CSV file will be read faster, but any line exceeding this limit will be truncated. The default enclosure to use for CSV files is '"'. You can set a different one using the option 'enclosure'. ',')); $translate->addTranslation('/path/to/other.csv', 'fr'); ]]> INI source files are human readable but normally not very small as they also include other data beside translations. If you have data which shall be editable by your customers you can use the INI adapter. addTranslation('/path/to/other.ini', 'it'); ]]> INI files have several restrictions. If a value in the ini file contains any non-alphanumeric characters it needs to be enclosed in double-quotes ("). There are also reserved words which must not be used as keys for ini files. These include: null, yes, no, true, and false. Values null, no and false results in "", yes and true results in 1. Characters {}|&~![()" must not be used anywhere in the key and have a special meaning in the value. Do not use them as it will produce unexpected behaviour. Options can be used with all adapters. Of course the options are different for all adapters. You can set options when you create the adapter. Actually there is one option which is available to all adapters: 'clear' sets if translation data should be added to existing one or not. Standard behaviour is to add new translation data to existing one. But the translation data is only cleared for the selected language. So other languages remain untouched. You can set options temporarily when using addTranslation($data, $locale, array $options = array()) as third and optional parameter. And you can use the method setOptions() to set the options permanently. ':'); $translate = new Zend_Translate( 'csv', '/path/to/mytranslation.csv', 'de', $options); ... // clear the defined language and use new translation data $options = array('clear' => true); $translate->addTranslation('/path/to/new.csv', 'fr', $options); ]]> Here you can find all available options for the different adapters with a description of their usage: Option Adapter Description Default value clear all If set to true, the already read translations will be cleared. This can be used instead of creating a new instance when reading new translation data false disableNotices all If set to true, all notices regarding not available translations will be disabled. You should set this option to true in production environment false ignore all All directories and files beginning with this prefix will be ignored when searching for files. This value defaults to '.' which leads to the behavior that all hidden files will be ignored. Setting this value to 'tmp' would mean that directories and files like 'tmpImages' and 'tmpFiles' would be ignored as well as all subsequent directories . log all An instance of Zend_Log where untranslated messages and notices will be written to null logMessage all The message which will be written into the log Untranslated message within '%locale%': %message% logUntranslated all When this option is set to true, all message IDs which can not be translated will be written into the attached log false scan all If set to null, no scanning of the directory structure will be done. If set to Zend_Translate::LOCALE_DIRECTORY the locale will be detected within the directory. If set to Zend_Translate::LOCALE_FILENAME the locale will be detected within the filename. See for details null delimiter Csv Defines which sign is used as delimiter for separating source and translation ; enclosure Csv Defines the enclosure character to be used. Defaults to a doublequote " length Csv Defines the maximum length of a csv line. When set to 0 it will be detected automatically 0 When you want to have self defined options, you are also able to use them within all adapters. The setOptions() method can be used to define your option. setOptions() needs an array with the options you want to set. If an given option exists it will be signed over. You can define as much options as needed as they will not be checked by the adapter. Just make sure not to overwrite any existing option which is used by an adapter. To return the option you can use the getOptions() method. When getOptions() is called without a parameter it will return all options set. When the optional parameter is given you will only get the specified option. When working with different languages there are a few methods which will be useful. The getLocale() method can be used to get the currently set language. It can either hold an instance of Zend_Locale or the identifier of a locale. The setLocale() method sets a new standard language for translation. This prevents the need of setting the optional language parameter more than once to the translate() method. If the given language does not exist, or no translation data is available for the language, setLocale() tries to downgrade to the language without the region if any was given. A language of en_US would be downgraded to en. When even the downgraded language can not be found an exception will be thrown. The isAvailable() method checks if a given language is already available. It returns true if data for the given language exist. And finally the getList() method can be used to get all currently set languages for an adapter returned as array. getLocale(); // you can use the optional parameter while translating echo $translate->_("my_text", "fr"); // or set a new language $translate->setLocale("fr"); echo $translate->_("my_text"); // refer to the base language // fr_CH will be downgraded to fr $translate->setLocale("fr_CH"); echo $translate->_("my_text"); // check if this language exist if ($translate->isAvailable("fr")) { // language exists } ]]> Note that as long as you only add new translation sources with the addTranslation() method Zend_Translate will automatically set the best fitting language for your environment when you use one of the automatic locales which are 'auto' or 'browser'. So normally you will not need to call setLocale(). This should only be used in conjunction with automatic source detection. The algorithm will search for the best fitting locale depending on the user's browser and your environment. See the following example for details: Zend_Translate::LOCALE_FILENAME)); // Example 2: // Best found fitting language is 'fr' $translate = new Zend_Translate( 'gettext', 'my_fr.mo', 'auto', array('scan' => Zend_Translate::LOCALE_FILENAME)); // Example 3: // Best found fitting language is 'de' ('de_AT' will be degraded) $translate = new Zend_Translate( 'gettext', 'my_de.mo', 'auto', array('scan' => Zend_Translate::LOCALE_FILENAME)); // Example 4: // Returns 'it' as translation source and overrides the automatic settings $translate = new Zend_Translate( 'gettext', 'my_it.mo', 'auto', array('scan' => Zend_Translate::LOCALE_FILENAME)); $translate->addTranslation('my_ru.mo', 'ru'); $translate->setLocale('it_IT'); ]]> After setting a language manually with the setLocale() method the automatic detection will be switched off and overridden. If you want to use it again, you can set the language auto with setLocale() which will reactivate the automatic detection for Zend_Translate. Since Zend Framework 1.7.0 Zend_Translate also recognises an application wide locale. You can simply set a Zend_Locale instance to the registry like shown below. With this notation you can forget about setting the locale manually with each instance when you want to use the same locale multiple times. isAvailable($locale->getLanguage())) { // not available languages are rerouted to another language $translate->setLocale($defaultlanguage); } $translate->getLocale(); ]]> Zend_Translate can detect translation sources automatically. So you don't have to declare each source file manually. You can let Zend_Translate do this job and scan the complete directory structure for source files. Automatic source detection is available since Zend Framework version 1.5 . The usage is quite the same as initiating a single translation source with one difference. You must give a directory which has to be scanned instead a file. So Zend_Translate does not only search the given directory, but also all subdirectories for translation source files. This makes the usage quite simple. But Zend_Translate will ignore all files which are not sources or which produce failures while reading the translation data. So you have to make sure that all of your translation sources are correct and readable because you will not get any failure if a file is bogus or can not be read. Depending on how deep your directory structure is and how much files are within this structure it can take a long time for Zend_Translate to complete. In our example we have used the TMX format which includes the language to be used within the source. But many of the other source formats are not able to include the language within the file. Even this sources can be used with automatic scanning if you do some pre-requisits as described below: One way to include automatic language detection is to name the directories related to the language which is used for the sources within this directory. This is the easiest way and is used for example within standard gettext implementations. Zend_Translate needs the 'scan' option to know that it should search the names of all directories for languages. See the following example for details: Zend_Translate::LOCALE_DIRECTORY)); ]]> This works only for adapters which do not include the language within the source file. Using this option for example with TMX will be ignored. Also language definitions within the filename will be ignored when using this option. You should be aware if you have several subdirectories under the same structure. Assuming we have a structure like /language/module/de/en/file.mo. In this case the path contains multiple strings which would be detected as locale. It could be either de or en. In such a case the behaviour is undefined and it is recommended to use file detection in such situations. Another way to detect the language automatically is to use special filenames. You can either name the complete file or parts of a file after the used language. To use this way of detection you will have to set the 'scan' option at initiation. There are several ways of naming the sourcefiles which are described below: Zend_Translate::LOCALE_FILENAME)); ]]> Having the whole file named after the language is the simplest way but only viable if you have only one file per language. Another simple way to use the extension of the file for language detection. But this may be confusing since you will no longer have an idea which extension the file originally had. Zend_Translate is also capable of detecting the language if it is included within the filename. But if you go this way you will have to separate the language with a token. There are three supported tokens which can be used: a dot '.', an underscore '_', or a hyphen '-'. detects english /languages/view_de.mo -> detects german /languages/view_it.mo -> detects italian ]]> The first found string delimited by a token which can be interpreted as a locale will be used. See the following example for details. detects english /languages/view_en_es.mo -> detects english and overwrites the first file /languages/view_it_it.mo -> detects italian ]]> All three tokens are used to detect the locale. When the filename contains multiple tokens, the first found token depends on the order of the tokens which are used. See the following example for details. detects english because '_' will be used before '-' /languages/view-en_it.mo -> detects italian because '_' will be used before '-' /languages/view_en.it.mo -> detects italian because '.' will be used before '_' ]]> Normally text will be translated without any computation. But sometimes it is necessary to know if a text is translated or not, therefor the isTranslated() method can be used. isTranslated($messageId, $original = false, $locale = null) takes the text you want to check as its first parameter, and as optional third parameter the locale for which you want to do the check. The optional second parameter declares whether translation is fixed to the declared language or a lower set of translations can be used. If you have a text which can be returned for 'en' but not for 'en_US' you will normally get the translation returned, but by setting $original to true, isTranslated() will return false. 'Nachricht 1', 'message2' => 'Nachricht 2', 'message3' => 'Nachricht 3'); $translate = new Zend_Translate('array', $english, 'de_AT'); if ($translate->isTranslated('message1')) { print "'message1' can be translated"; } if (!($translate->isTranslated('message1', true, 'de'))) { print "'message1' can not be translated to 'de'" . " as it's available only in 'de_AT'"; } if ($translate->isTranslated('message1', false, 'de')) { print "'message1' can be translated in 'de_AT' as it falls back to 'de'"; } ]]> When you have a bigger site or you are creating the translation files manually, you often have the problem that some messages are not translated. But there is an easy solution for you when you are using Zend_Translate. You have to follow two or three simple steps. First, you have to create an instance of Zend_Log. Then you have to attach this instance to Zend_Translate. See the following example: setOptions(array( 'log' => $log, 'logUntranslated' => true)); $translate->translate('unknown string'); ]]> Now you will have a new notice in the log: Untranslated message within 'de': unknown string. You should note that any translation which can not be found will be logged. This means all translations when a user requests a language which is not supported. Also every request for a message which can not be translated will be logged. Be aware, that 100 people requesting the same translation, will result 100 logged notices. This feature can not only be used to log messages but also to attach this untranslated messages into an empty translation file. To do so you will have to write your own log writer which writes the format you want to have and strips the prepending "Untranslated message". You can also set the 'logMessage' option when you want to have your own log message. Use the '%message%' token for placing the messageId within your log message, and the '%locale%' token for the requested locale. See the following example for a self defined log message: setOptions(array( 'log' => $log, 'logMessage' => "Missing '%message%' within locale '%locale%'", 'logUntranslated' => true)); $translate->translate('unknown string'); ]]> Sometimes it is useful to have access to the translation source data. Therefor the following two functions are provided. The getMessageIds($locale = null) method returns all known message IDs as array. The getMessages($locale = null) method returns the complete translation source as an array. The message ID is used as key and the translation data as value. Both methods accept an optional parameter $locale which, if set, returns the translation data for the specified language. If this parameter is not given, the actual set language will be used. Keep in mind that normally all translations should be available in all languages. Which means that in a normal situation you will not have to set this parameter. Additionally the getMessages() method can be used to return the complete translation dictionary using the pseudo-locale 'all'. This will return all available translation data for each added locale. Attention: the returned array can be very big, depending on the number of added locales and the amount of translation data. getMessageIds(); print_r($messageIds); // or just for the specified language $messageIds = $translate->getMessageIds('en_US'); print_r($messageIds); // returns all the complete translation data $source = $translate->getMessages(); print_r($source); ]]>