Yii and multilingual URLs - php

Question

I'm trying to create multilingual application. I've implemented ability of translationable content and next step should be showing it to user. I want to have ability of changing language depending on URL. I've found a couple of components for those purposes but they all create urls which I don't like. For example, my application's default language is English and I have content which is translated into French. I have page "contacts", for instance. And URLs which will be generated by application will be: mysite.com/en/contacts, mysite.com/fr/contacts, but I want to have mysite.com/contacts for default language and mysite.com/fr/contacts for French language. It's simillar for site's root too. mysite.com/ - for default language and mysite.com/fr for French.
Is there any methods for implementing these functionality?

Answer 1

I'm using XUrlManager extension XUrlManager on GitHub
Yii generates URL's based on UrlManager rules. If you want URL's without /lang/ code - you need just create correct rules. For example, if you dublicate records in rules array:
'rules'=>array(
'<_c:\w+>/<_a:\w+>'=>'<_c>/<_a>',
'<language:\w{2}>/<_c:\w+>/<_a:\w+>'=>'<_c>/<_a>',
);
your URL's will be generated withou /en/ and /fr/, but URL's with code works too. By default, XUrlManager use previously selected language and store this in session or cookie.
If you want only hide /en/ and use /fr/ and others always, you can change your XUrlManager extension with:
public function createUrl($route,$params=array(),$ampersand='&')
{
if(!isset($params['language']) && Yii::app()->language!=='en')
$params['language']=Yii::app()->language;
return parent::createUrl($route,$params,$ampersand);
}

Answer 2

I've found very elegant method for solving my problem on http://www.elisdn.ru
Reimplement CHttpRequest
class DLanguageHttpRequest extends CHttpRequest
{
private $_requestUri;
public function getRequestUri()
{
if ($this->_requestUri === null)
$this->_requestUri = DMultilangHelper::processLangInUrl(parent::getRequestUri());
return $this->_requestUri;
}
public function getOriginalUrl()
{
return $this->getOriginalRequestUri();
}
public function getOriginalRequestUri()
{
return DMultilangHelper::addLangToUrl($this->getRequestUri());
}
}
Reimplement CUrlManager
class DLanguageUrlManager extends CUrlManager
{
public function createUrl($route, $params=array(), $ampersand='&')
{
$url = parent::createUrl($route, $params, $ampersand);
return DMultilangHelper::addLangToUrl($url);
}
}
Change config
return array(
'sourceLanguage'=>'en',
'language'=>'ru',
'components'=>array(
'request'=>array(
'class'=>'DLanguageHttpRequest',
...
),
'urlManager'=>array(
'class'=>'DLanguageUrlManager',
...
),
),
...
'params'=>array(
'translatedLanguages'=>array(
'ru'=>'Russian',
'en'=>'English',
'de'=>'Deutsch',
),
'defaultLanguage'=>'ru',
),
);
Create DMultilangHelper
class DMultilangHelper
{
public static function enabled()
{
return count(Yii::app()->params['translatedLanguages']) > 1;
}
public static function suffixList()
{
$list = array();
$enabled = self::enabled();
foreach (Yii::app()->params['translatedLanguages'] as $lang => $name)
{
if ($lang === Yii::app()->params['defaultLanguage']) {
$suffix = '';
$list[$suffix] = $enabled ? $name : '';
} else {
$suffix = '_' . $lang;
$list[$suffix] = $name;
}
}
return $list;
}
public static function processLangInUrl($url)
{
if (self::enabled())
{
$domains = explode('/', ltrim($url, '/'));
$isLangExists = in_array($domains[0], array_keys(Yii::app()->params['translatedLanguages']));
$isDefaultLang = $domains[0] == Yii::app()->params['defaultLanguage'];
if ($isLangExists && !$isDefaultLang)
{
$lang = array_shift($domains);
Yii::app()->setLanguage($lang);
}
$url = '/' . implode('/', $domains);
}
return $url;
}
public static function addLangToUrl($url)
if (self::enabled())
{
$domains = explode('/', ltrim($url, '/'));
$isHasLang = in_array($domains[0], array_keys(Yii::app()->params['translatedLanguages']));
$isDefaultLang = Yii::app()->getLanguage() == Yii::app()->params['defaultLanguage'];
if ($isHasLang && $isDefaultLang)
array_shift($domains);
if (!$isHasLang && !$isDefaultLang)
array_unshift($domains, Yii::app()->getLanguage());
$url = '/' . implode('/', $domains);
}
return $url;
}
}
After all of these steps your application will have URLs which you want
More information here