Internationalization (i18n) library for CodeIgniter

Warning: this tutorial and library are out of date. Prefer the last version, more robust.

• maestric.com/en/about
• maestric.com/fr/about

views/about.php

<h2>
  <?= $this->lang->line('who'); ?>
</h2>

language/about_lang.xml

<text id="who">
	<en>Who</en>
	<fr>Qui</fr>
</text>

• Download ci_i18n_library.zip
• Put MY_Language.php and MyController.php in libraries
• Put url_helper.php in helpers
• In config/autoload.php: $autoload['libraries'] = array('MyController');
• In config/config.php, make sure $config['base_url'] corresponds to your configuration.
• In config/routes.php add:

$route['^fr/(.+)$'] = "$1";
$route['^en/(.+)$'] = "$1";
 
$route['^fr$'] = $route['default_controller'];
$route['^en$'] = $route['default_controller'];

controllers/about.php

<?php
class About extends Controller {
	function index()
	{
		// load language file
		$this->lang->load('about');
 
		$this->load->view('about');
	}
}
?>

language/about_lang.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<data>
  <text id="about_me">
    <en>I'm just a man</en>
    <fr>Je ne suis qu'un homme</fr>
  </text>
</data>

views/about.php

<p><?= $this->lang->line('about_me'); ?></p>

Check it's working:

• http://your_base_url/en/about
• http://your_base_url/fr/about

If it's not, try this: CodeIgniter 1.6.1 + i18n library (You may need to set RewriteBase in the .htaccess to make the URL rewriting work).

• routes.php: ignore language in URL when looking for the controller
• MyController.php: check language in URL
• controllers/about.php: load localized strings for current language
• views/about.php: display localized string

Note: if your root URL / is requested:

• first visit: redirection to default_controller using language from visitor's browser.
• following: redirection to default_controller using language from previous visit (from visitor's cookie).

Note: anchor(“about”, “test”) generates a link to /en/about (if the current language is English).

Example: German (de)

• In config/routes.php add:

$route['^de/(.+)$'] = "$1";
$route['^de$'] = $route['default_controller'];

• In MY_Language.php add to $supportedLanguages:

"de"	=> "de",
"de-at"	=> "de",
"de-ch"	=> "de",
"de-de"	=> "de"

• Add the German text in your XML file:

<text id="who">
	<en>Who</en>
	<fr>Qui</fr>
	<de>Wer</de>
</text>

That's it!

Editing long XML files is not fun. To help you, I've written XMLLocalizationEditor for Mac OS X (source included).

Example:

XML code generated: