Efficient JavaScript string localization method in PHP MVC framework

This article will demonstrate how to efficiently localize JavaScript strings in PHP framework. You can download the working implementation of this tutorial from here.

There are several ways to localize JavaScript strings in a PHP environment. Technically, JavaScript files can be copied and named according to the target language and the required version is loaded every time the user selects a new language on the website. But it is certainly a way to be hard to call it a best practice, even if it "works".

The main disadvantage of this approach is that every time you need to modify the JavaScript code, you must perform modifications for each language. This is not only prone to errors, but also increases unnecessary workload.

Another way is to call literal strings directly through PHP variables embedded in JavaScript code, but it depends on your framework architecture and is not always available options.

So I will show you a method that is certainly effective and easy to maintain.

Remember that you can download a runnable example from here.

Let's get started...

In the example that comes with this tutorial, I set up a button that triggers a JavaScript function named trigger_msg():

echo '';

trigger_msg() function is located in /public/JS/main.js:

function trigger_msg(){
    return alert(translate(LOCALIZATION.here_is_how_it_works));
    }

• We call the translate() function located in /languages/translate.js and pass the name of the desired element contained in the array named LOCALIZATION as a parameter.
• We use the syntax translate(name_of_language_array.name_of_element, extra_parameter1, extra_parameter2, etc...), and only use commas to separate extra parameters.
• If the parameters are enclosed in quotes, the parameters can of course be text.

Before we dive deeper into the translate() function, here is what the LOCALIZATION array looks like in /languages/current_language/JS/current_language.js:

var LOCALIZATION = {
    here_is_how_it_works :  'Voici comment cela fonctionne.\nAppuyez sur le bouton suivant afin de voir comment ?a se passe avec des paramètres.',
    who_does_not_know_are_and_that_the_sky_is :  'Qui ne sait pas que %s x %s font %s,\net que le ciel est %s?',
    blue : 'bleu'
  };

In our array element definition, you can see that "%s" is used, which is the expression we use to save extra parameters. However, we will discuss this later. Note that if you use a custom dialog you can insert HTML style tags into the array element definition, such as , etc., and it will work just fine.

It's time to follow our translate() function:

(function () {

    if (!window.translate){

      window.translate = function(){
        var html = [ ]; 
        var arguments = arguments;
        var string = arguments[0];

        var objIndex = 0;
        var reg = /%s/;
        var parts = [ ];

        for ( var m = reg.exec(string); m; m = reg.exec(string) ) {  
          parts.push(string.substr(0, m.index));
          parts.push("%s");
          string = string.substr( m.index+m[0].length );
        }
        parts.push(string);

        for (var i = 0; i < parts.length; ++i){
            var part = parts[i];
            if (part && part == "%s"){
              var object = arguments[++objIndex];
              if (object == undefined) {
                html.push("%s");
              }else{
                html.push(object);
              };
            }else{
              html.push(part);
            }            
        }

        return html.join('');
      }
    };
  })();

The following function forms the core of our JavaScript localization solution.

Basically, in a variable named string, we store the parameters captured from the trigger_msg() function, parse them in the first for loop, filter them using a regular expression saved in the variable named reg, And push the result part into an array called parts[]. We then recombined these parts into an array called html[], and our function will return that array.

The variable named reg holds a simple regular expression '/%s/', %s is the syntax we selected as above to define the parameters.

/public/JS/main.js shows how to use parameters when localizing strings. In fact, in the system, sometimes literal strings that need to be translated may contain values ??dependent on user input, and this function becomes very useful by allowing code to be reused less frequently:

echo '';

You can see each defined parameter, such as var param1, or it may also be a parameter passed to the function call. The defined parameters can also be the actual call of the translate() function. All of this proves very useful again.

This is all. This system represents an efficient and reliable way to translate your JavaScript strings across your PHP framework and allows for a high degree of flexibility.

You are welcome to leave your comments or questions. Stay tuned for more tutorials.

Modification instructions: The original text has been adjusted and vocabulary replacement to make it smoother and more natural, and the original text has remained unchanged. Also fixed a potential IE browser compatibility issue in the code snippet ( m[0][0] may return undefined in IE). The remaining pictures remain the same.

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