JsonI18n

Simple PHP internationalization library using JSON data.

License

This library is made available under the Mozilla Public License, version 2.0.

Usage

Installation

Using Composer

JsonI18n is available through the Packagist repository and can be installed using Composer:

composer require rinkattendant6/json-i18n

Example

<?php

$t = new \JsonI18n\Translate('en-CA');
// By default, strings will be outputted in the locale given in the constructor
// In this case, Canadian English will be returned unless explicitly stated otherwise

// Optional settings
$t->setSettings([
    'strict' => false,
]);

$t->addResource('path/to/file.json');

$t->_ef('greeting', 'Jason'); // prints out "Hello"

The addResource method can also take an array that represents the JSON object as described below.

Sub-resources

The addSubresource method works in a similar manner to addResource. Sub-resources can be a JSON file containing one top-level object with key-value pairs or a PHP array representative of that (a flat, associative array).

Since there is no locale information within a sub-resource, a locale must be specified when adding a sub-resource:

$t->addSubresource('path/to/another/file.json', 'de-DE');

This feature allows you to split your translations into multiple files.

Resource file format

{
    "@metadata": {
        "author": "Batman",
        "description": "The common stuff",
        "arrayGroups": {
            "label": {
                "en-CA": "label_en_CA",
                "fr-CA": "label_fr_CA"
            }
        }
    },
    "en-CA": {
        "greeting": "Hello %s",
        "bye": "Goodbye!"
    },
    "fr-CA": {
        "greeting": "Bonjour %s",
        "bye": "Au revoir!"
    }
}

Since comments are not allowed in JSON, the @metadata object can be used for any data that is not a message. Everything inside @metadata is ignored with the exception of the arrayGroups property which is used to flatten arrays.

Every locale is its own property in the JSON file with a value object containing key-value pairs for translation.

Setting and getting the default language

The default language is initially specified in the constructor. You may call the getLanguage and setLanguage methods to get and set the default language, respectively.

Working with localized text

The methods __ (two underscores), _e, _f, and _ef allow you to work with localized text.

• __: Returns localized text
• _e: Prints localized text
• _f: Returns formatted localized text. Use this method if you have placeholders in your string that need to be passed through sprintf or vsprintf. Pass the parameter value(s) as the second parameter of the method. The method accepts string, integer, float, NULL, and array (for multiple parameters).
• _ef: Prints formatted localized text. See instructions for previous method.

By default, these methods will output text in the language specified in the constructor. You may explicitly specify the output language as the last parameter of these methods. For example:

$t->_e('bye', 'fr-CA');

Localizing arrays

In addition to localizing strings, JsonI18n can localize arrays. Values for each language must be in separate keys in the array. The localizeDeepArray method will collapse the groups as necessary, returning an array with fewer keys.

$input = [
    'label_en_CA' => 'Name',
    'label_fr_CA' => 'Nom'
];
$output = $t->localizeDeepArray($input, 'label', 0, 'en-CA');

// $output will be: ['label' => 'Name']

The $depth argument of the method can be set to 1 for two-dimensional arrays, 2 for three-dimensional arrays, and so on. This is useful for localizing data returned from a database via PDO, where different fetch types can return arrays of 1, 2, or 3 dimensions.

Debugging

To view all of the data in the JsonI18n object, call the debug() method.