properly using variable variables for multilanguage feature - php

Question

I implemented a multilanguage feature for my web application. I get the values by this
echo $lang['the key here'];
and i keep the values in a separate fiels like this
$lang['confirm'] = 'COnfirm the message';
$lang['deny'] = 'Deny the invitation';
so i want if somebody calls a undefined key like $lang['sdefscfef'] , insted of printing white space, I want to print the key name i.e 'sdefscfef'
I want to make it as a function
function translate($string) {
if(! isset($string)) {
echo THE KEY;
}
else {
echo $string;
}
}
translate($lang['asdadad']);
and to print the key

Answer 1

Instead of printing the array directly I would create a function (_() is common) and use it like so:
echo _('Welcome');
And the _() function would then look in the $language array:
function _ ($str) {
global $language;
return isset($language[$str]) ? $language[$str] : $str;
}
Something like that.
If you want to avoid using a global variable you can wrap all of this in a class like this:
class Lang {
private $lang = array();
public static translate ($str) {
return isset(self::$lang[$str]) self::$lang[$str] : $str;
}
}
And then, to avoid having to type Lang::translate() everywhere you can do this:
function _ ($str) {
return Lang::translate($str);
}
Here's an example of a little more advanced Language class: http://code.google.com/p/sleek-php/source/browse/trunk/Core/Lang.php

Answer 2

Use simply:
$lang['confirm'] = 'COnfirm the message';
$lang['deny'] = 'Deny the invitation';
....
function getTranslation($key) {
global $lang;
if (isset($lang[$key])) {
return $lang[$key];
} else {
return $key;
}
}
// Usage:
echo getTranslation('confirm'); // Prints 'Confirm the message'
echo getTranslation('sjdhj'); // Prints 'sjdhj'