Re: New class in PEAR: Translation

Am Tue, 01 Oct 2002 12:30:35 +0200 schrieb Wojciech Zieliñski <voyteck@caffe.com.pl>: > Can I please have some votes (if someone thinks, it's bad idea - then > also vote against :) I will at least know, that I am not going the good > direction :) ) > If someone wants to see this class - it is right now available on > http://voyteck3.free.komrel.net/translation/ IMHO Wolfram´s I18N class and your new Translation class are very good examples why it´s a good thing to have more than one solution for a problem in PEAR - when this class will be added, there will be two different approaches to the same problem in PEAR, but still not the one that I would need, so there´s still room for another :-) However, here´s my +1 for adding this class as I think it will be useful for some people. You might consider choosing another License though as I believe "Postcardware" is not one of the licenses that are listed as compatible to the PHP-License :-) In case you´re wondering what I have in mind when I think of a translation class, it´s basically this: When I need to output strings in a script, I make an instance of a translation class... $t = new Translation("DE"); // For translating into german To get a translated string, I´d simply do something like this: $trans = $t->get("Translation is good"); Or this: printf($t->get("You have %s unread mails", $num); The "get" method will look up the string in a database table that looks like this: BASE (Primary Key) | DE | FR ------------------------+-------------------------------+------------------------- Translation is good | Übersetzung ist gut | Je ne parle pas Francais You have % unread mails | Sie haben %s ungelesene Mails | The field "BASE" will always contain the original strings in the base language. This is the language that I´m using in my PHP code and will be English in most cases I guess. This way my code is very easy to read and understand. Also, it doesn´t matter on which page I am which is especially important as I sometimes need to output stuff in scripts when I can´t possibly know where I am at the moment. When a string is not yet in the database, it will be added for future reference. The other column names are identical to the language string that is passed to the translation class constructor. If no translation for a specific string is available (meaning the target language´s column is empty or doesn´t exist), the string will always be returned in the base language. This is a drop-dead-simple method of translation that is not only easy to use but also easy to maintain even with tools like phpMyAdmin. If someone here knows a class that already does this or something very similar, please drop me a line. If not, I´ll have to write this myself as I need something like this and have no use for page-oriented translation. Regards, Markus -- *21st Media* | Consulting, Konzeption, Produktion für die Bereiche: Markus Wolff | Internet, Intranet, eCommerce, Content Management, Hamburg,Germany | Softwareentwicklung, 3D-Animation, Videostreaming http://21st.de | Tel. [+49](0)40/6887949-0, Fax: [+49](0)40/6887949-1