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unregister_tick_function	bind_textdomain_codeset

view the version of this page	Last updated: Tue, 22 Apr 2003

XXXV. Gettext

Introductie

The gettext functions implement an NLS (Native Language Support) API which can be used to internationalize your PHP applications. Please see the gettext documentation for your system for a thorough explanation of these functions or view the docs at .

Afhankelijkheden

To use these functions you must download and install the GNU gettext package from

Installatie

To include GNU gettext support in your PHP build you must add the option --with-gettext[=DIR] where DIR is the gettext install directory, defaults to /usr/local.

Note to Win32 Users: In order to enable this module on a Windows environment, you must copy gnu_gettext.dll from the DLL folder of the PHP/Win32 binary package to the SYSTEM32 folder of your windows machine. (Ex: C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 or C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32). Starting with PHP 4.2.3 the name changed to libintl-1.dll

Configuratie tijdens scriptuitvoer

Deze extensie gebruikt geen configuratie regels.

Resource types

Deze extensie maakt geen gebruik van resources.

Voorgedefineerde constanten

Deze extensie definieert geen constanten.

Inhoudsopgave
bind_textdomain_codeset -- Specify the character encoding in which the messages from the DOMAIN message catalog will be returned
bindtextdomain -- Sets the path for a domain
dcgettext -- Overrides the domain for a single lookup
dcngettext -- Plural version of dcgettext
dgettext -- Override the current domain
dngettext -- Plural version of dgettext
gettext -- Lookup a message in the current domain
ngettext -- Plural version of gettext
textdomain -- Sets the default domain

User Contributed Notes
Gettext add a note

ilya at vtrails dot com
09-Jul-2000 02:01

For all the confused folks: gettext is GNU's project, it's main purpose is
to allow easy internationalization of programs (that is, translation of
messages to other languages). Check 

for
details about the library itself. Also, read gettext description in this
manual to see what it has to do with PHP. 

Basicly, instead of
printing your messages in the usual way in PHP code, you can use gettext
calls to substitute messages in other languages on the fly

11-Jul-2001 12:40

It is probably obvious to many of you,  but I thought it was worth
mentioning that the domain is the name of the .mo files that contain the
string catalogue (without the extension).



so if you have a
catalogue myPage.mo for each page in './locale/lg/LC_MESSAGE' and some
generic catalogues (e.g. errorMsg.mo) in '/global/locale/lg/LC_MESSAGE',
you can do



bindTextDomain("$myPage",
'./locale');

bindTextDomain('errorMsg','/global/locale'
);

textDomain('myPage');

print(getText('Welcome'));

/.../

if($err)printf(dGetText('errorMsg','you
have an error here'));



Ivan

12-Jul-2001 11:59

To get xgettext working with my php code I had to change simple quotes to
double quites in my previous example
:



print(getText("Welcome")); 

/.../


if($err)printf(dGetText("errorMsg","you have an error
here"));



I guess that's because strings can not be
simple-quoted in C. However I think it is good practice to do as if it was
a simple quote, because you do not want to interpolate a string that will
end in the catalogue.



Ivan

Michele dot Manzato at verona dot miz dot it
14-Sep-2001 10:52

Gettext is great, but there are a few caveats you have to consider in order
to make it work. Unfortunately the gettext docs isn't so plain and
clear...



The .mo file created with the gettext utilities must
be:



[bindtextdomain's
dir]/[language]/LC_MESSAGES/[domain].mo



otherwise gettext()
function will fail to find it (this is true in win32, don't know about
Un*ces). By the way you don't get any error message, the strings will
simply remain untranslated. 



Second, you must make sure which is
the current directory if you use a relative path in bindtextdomain. On
some systems the script directory isn't the current directory, so you have
to chdir() there.



Then, of course, make sure that the appropriate
gettext extension are loaded by PHP by looking at the php configuration
file.



Here is some sample code:



// Change to the script
directory

$path =
dirname(getenv(PATH_TRANSLATED));

chdir($path);



// Set the
language as 'it'

$language =
'it';

putenv("LANG=$language"); 

setlocale(LC_ALL,
$language);



// Set the text domain as 'mydomain'

$domain =
'mydomain';

bindtextdomain("$domain", "./locale");


textdomain("$domain");



// The .mo file searched
is:

// ./locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/mydomain.mo



echo
gettext("Hello world!");



Have fun!

Michele

hace_x at yahoo dot com
15-Nov-2001 12:40

I had alot of problems to get gettext() to work on my windows2000-php
webserver. The following will give those windows-php users something to
hold on to:



Note the way you have to use slashes for the
bindtextdomain command:



For a 'greetings'
domain:



bindtextdomain ("greetings",
".\includes\translations"); 



(so, TWO slashes instead
of one between the folder-names!)



ALSO, I had to change the
filename to be 'greetings.mo': This was NOT clear from all the gnu-pages I
read. I had named those files: nl.mo (for dutch) and fr.mo (for french
etcetera). 



I provide my code and folder-structure here for other
windows-users:



<? 

Header("Content-type:
text/plain");

// Bind a domain to directory 

// Gettext uses
domains to know what directories to 

// search for translations to
messages passed to gettext 



bindtextdomain
("greetings", "./includes/translations"); // Set the
current domain that gettext will use 

textdomain ('greetings'); # Make
an array 



# Use the ISO two-letter codes as keys 

# Use the
language names as values 

$iso_codes = array ( 

  
'en'=>'English', 

 'fr'=>'French', 

   'it'=>'Italian',


  'pt'=>'Portuguese', 

   'es'=>'Spanish', 

 
'nl'=>'Nederlands' 

); 

foreach ($iso_codes as $iso_code =>
$language) { 

   # Set the LANGUAGE environment variable to the
desired language 

   putenv ('LANG='.$iso_code); # Print out the
language name and greeting 

# Filter the greeting through gettext




printf ("%12s: %s\n", $language,
gettext("str_hello")) & "\n"; 



}


?> 



In the windows-webfolder I have the following
directory-structure:



==

includes\translations

includes\translationsen

includes\translations\en\LC_MESSAGES

includes\translations\en\LC_MESSAGES\greetings.po

includes\translations\nl\

includes\translations\nl\LC_MESSAGES

includes\translations\nl\LC_MESSAGES\greetings.mo

\includes\translations\nl\LC_MESSAGES\greetings.po

===



To
get this working you will need a greetings.po file like
this:



(this one is in the 'nl' subdir for dutch
language):

===

msgid ""

msgstr
""

"Project-Id-Version:
n"

"POT-Creation-Date: n"

"PO-Revision-Date:
2001-11-14 17:11+0100n"

"Last-Translator: Melle Koning
<[email protected]>n"

"Language-Team: 
<>n"

"MIME-Version: 1.0n"

"Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=utf-8n"

"Content-Transfer-Encoding:
8bitn"



msgid "str_hello"

msgstr
"hallo"

===



and you have to 'compile' this .po file
to a .mo file with the following command-line (go to windows 'command
prompt'):



==

msgfmt -o greetings.mo
greetings.po

==



To get msgfmt working on your windows
machine, you will need to have libiconv.dll, libintl.dll and msgfmt.exe in
your path. What I did was put these three files in a new c:utils folder
and than run the command:

path=%path%;c:utils



I hope this
helps some windows-users like me to get gettext() to work on their
systems.......



Cheers,

Melle

[email protected]

mgvNOSPAM at fx dot ro
05-Jun-2002 02:47

If you're as clueless as I am, please note the following:
1. Although
most comments list setlocal() in the code, that's not actually required
for translations - read the docs under "string functions" for
details (also, the official gettext() examples don't include it);
2.
hace_x's example is really cool, except you need to know that all
"n"'s at the end of his strings should have a backslash before -
they're actually EOL characters, but they somehow got messed up and I
needed two hours to find that out...

php at dynaperl dot com 25-Jun-2002 01:49
`�f you install from SuSE Dist. you need glibc-locale.rpm to let gettext work. mfg ralph.`

ywliu atsign hotmail com
09-Jul-2002 04:39

Hello,

For users with Red Hat GNU/Linux (at least 6.2) to use
gettext, I'd like to make some notes here :

1. Calling setlocale()
is necessary, where calling putenv('LANG=xx_YY') or putenv('LC_ALL=xx_YY')
is not.

2. The country/language code should be in the
"language_country" form,such as, "en_US" or
"fr_FR", or any entry in /usr/share/locale/locale.aliase . The
simple ISO two-letter code, such as "en" , is not valid. You can
examine the return value of setlocale to see if the locale setting
succeeds.

This took me several hours to debug. I hope my experience
can save you some time.

This may apply to other Linux distributions
or *BSD systems. I don't know. I hope this helps.

Yen-Wei Liu

flaimo at gmx dot net 28-Dec-2002 04:20
`since my provider doesn't support gettext, i've written a language + translation class. if you have the same problem you could take a look at it at`

yledoare at free dot fr
15-Jan-2003 02:32

Corrections to "hace_x at yahoo dot com" message.

Note :
The backslash have been removed in the greetings.po sample code (before
the n characters at end of lines).

Same thing for
".includestranslations" to move into
"./includes/translations" in php sample.

I used mingw () with gettext package
()
to make it work under WinXp.

I uncoment also
"extension=php_gettext.dll" in php.ini (I am using easy php
1.6.0.0)

Here is my conv.bat to generate french translation
:

set path=c:\mingw\bin
msgfmt -v -o greetings.mo greetings.po

pause

That's all !

Yann Le Doar�, Brest, France

Eneko Lacunza enlar at enlar dot net
16-Jan-2003 03:20

Some tips from my Red Hat Linux 7.3 system.

It didn't work for me
until I set a full locale (i.e. es_ES) with setlocale.

I was trying
with Michele Manzato's example (thank you!), but as it sets the language
without the country, it was failing for me. Here is the example
"fixed" with full locale:

// Change to script
directory
// (Not needed in RH 7.3)
$path =
dirname(getenv(PATH_TRANSLATED));
chdir($path);

// Set the
language as full locale 'es_ES'
$language =
'es_ES';
putenv("LANG=$language");
setlocale(LC_ALL,
$language);

// Set the text domain as 'mydomain'
$domain =
'mydomain';
bindtextdomain("$domain",
"./locale");
textdomain("$domain");

// The
.mo file searched is:
// ./locale/es_ES/LC_MESSAGES/mydomain.mo
//
or if previous one doesn't exist:
//
./locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/mydomain.mo

echo gettext("Hello
world!"); 

Hope this helps!
Eneko.

php at zpod dot ca 30-Jan-2003 02:24
`For those of you just trying to get a script working and your provider doesn't support gettext, you can bypass the international stuff by adding this: function _($str) { return $str; }`

zw at matfyz dot cz 05-Feb-2003 05:38
`There is a nice tutorial on using gettext with php`

technik at part2part dot com
18-Feb-2003 01:12

(german below)

gettext do not work correct, e.g. it do not
translate.

I lost many times on my S.u.S.E. System but I think,
this is not a problem by S.u.S:E: only.

You must set de_DE or en_GB
or xx_XX not de or en or xx in function setlocale.

A call strace
my_gettext_program_in_C show me, en or de do not work in C and in php
also.

For an translation from non-English  to English it is an good
idea to take a look in /usr/share/locale/locale.alias
If you don't find
en_GB it is nessesery to add this.

German:

Gettexet
funktioniert nicht wie gewollt, dh. die Funktion gibt keine Fehler aus,
�bersetzt aber auch nicht.

Nach viel probieren und experimentieren
fand ich die L�sung. Es reicht nicht einfach nur de in setlocale zu
verwenden. Es ist notwendig de_DE oder en_GB zu benutzten.

Falls
die �bersetztung von Deutsch nach Englisch nicht funktioniert, hilft eine
�berpr�fung von /usr/share/locale/locale.alias vielleicht weiter. Fehlt da
en_GB wird es nicht gehen. Also erg�nzen.

robert at klugher dot com
25-Feb-2003 12:24

One trick I found after HOURS of tries :

when you use the
setlocale(), PHP will use the locale info it will find in, for example,
/usr/share/locale to set the language info for LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES,
...

You can check the exact info it will use by using putenv() with
LANG=.... and looking at the return value of setlocale(LC_ALL,
""). The language value your gettext function will use to look
for your translation file is the one given for LC_MESSAGES.

Example
:

I was setting the LANG as fr_BE, and placed the translation file
in dirxxx/locale/fr_BE/LC_MESSAGES/...
As it was locale info in my
system for fr_BE but NOT LC_MESSAGES, PHP choosed to use the LC_MESSAGES
settings for fr_FR instead and then, was looking for a translation file in
dirxxx/locale/fr_FR/LC_MESSAGES/..., which wasn't found of
course.

So, just make sure to look at the return value of setlocale
to see what language value is associated to LC_MESSAGES and, then, to know
in which subdirectory the translation file will be looked for by
gettext.

Robert

robert at klugher dot com 25-Feb-2003 04:03
`Sorry, one more info : the previous post is especially interesting when you have values set on the server for some of the LC_... then, setlocale() output gives you all the LC_... with their value. BUT do not forget that the priority order for gettext is: LANGUAGE LC_ALL LC_MESSAGES LANG Then, if ever you script always translate to the same language, check the value of LANGUAGE ...`

kleinerwurm at gmx dot net 03-Apr-2003 11:59
`Addition to 'Note to Win32 Users' above: gnu_gettext.dll needs iconv.dll besides libintl-1.dll (is also distributed along, but not mentioned anywhere else)!`

anders at frostad dot org 04-Apr-2003 09:54
`I've had a few problems with gettext where some strings get translated, while others don't. Seems a little random what gets translated or not. Anyway, restarting apache after compiling the .mo file solves it...`

Daniel Garcia 29-Apr-2003 08:04
`For win32 users: besides copying the DLLs mentioned in the documentation, I had to uncomment the line: extension=php_gettext.dll in php.ini, and restart apache. It's probably obvious, but I could not find it in the docs. cheers !`

unregister_tick_function	bind_textdomain_codeset

	Last updated: Tue, 22 Apr 2003

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