comparing variables in PHP with different language files - php

Question

I have a select menu for users.
It is populated by PHP variables, which are all language variables. For example:
$word = $lang['word'];
$select = array($word);
Therefore, the select menu options will change based on the language the user has chosen. I need to be able to compare users' selections to each other. For example:
if($user1word == $user2word) ...
But because of the language files, this doesn't work. Obviously "one" != "Uno" even though they're the same.
My first fix was to change everything to a numeric value before posting it to the database. Example:
if($_POST['word'] == $lang['word']) { $userWord = 1 }
This worked perfectly for all words except those that contained special characters (å, æ, é...) and nothing I did could resolve this (I tried normalizer; language-specific accept-char onchange events for the form; utf8_encode. It was hopeless.
Currently everything saves to the database as text, dependent on the language the user is in. So if "Language" is an option, but you're in Norwegian, it saves as "Språk".
I need a simple solution that doesn't crush my mind - I am new to PHP.

Answer 1

Currently everything saves to the database as text, dependent on the language the user is in.
This is a design flaw in my opinion. Ideally your data would be as agnostic as possible to language and translations would be performed just for the UI with tools like gettext. Typically items like select values would be stored with keys or IDs.

Answer 2

Use a map that is based on a common index, this index can be english, spanish or numeric. i'd suggest numeric. Store the numeric index in your database.
A step in the right direction:
$lang['en'][0] = 'Hello';
$lang['de'][0] = 'Hallo';
$lang['es'][0] = 'Hola';
$lang['en'][1] = 'Sup?';
$lang['de'][1] = 'Wie gehts?';
$lang['es'][1] = 'Que pasa?';
$userLang = 'en';
// show the select
echo '<select name="word">';
foreach ( $lang[$userLang] as $index => $word {
echo '<option value="'.$index.'">'.$word.'</option>';
}
echo '</select>';
// show the selected word:
echo 'You chose to say "'.$lang[$userLang][$_POST['word']].'".';
// compare the word to what is in the db
if ( $_POST['word'] === $dbRow['word'] ) {
// expression matches!
// assume a column in the db "language" describes the language the user chose, e.g. 'en', 'de', or 'es'
echo 'You previously chose "'.$lang[$dbRow['language']][$dbRow['word']].'" in the language "'.$dbRow['language'].'".;
}
Depending on how you want to organize it, you may favor grouping by phrase instead of grouping by language, i.e.:
$lang[0]['en'] = 'Hello';
$lang[0]['de'] = 'Hallo';
$lang[0]['es'] = 'Hola';