Setting language for user - php

I would like my php website to be able to be multilinguistic. I thought of using:
echo $lang[$_SESSION['lang']]['WellcomeMessage'];
but I found that I will be needing to format the text, say for example male/female or putting some values from the DB. So I thought that simple strings might not do the trick for formatting?
I know #define might have worked in C as the string translates to code, but I don't know how php does that. For example:
define ($lang['en']['credit_left'],'you have $credits_left');
define ($lang['sp']['credit_left'],'tienes $credits_left creditos mas');
Any suggestions?

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extract info from jpeg with PHP

I want to extract variable lengths of information from a jpeg-file using PHP, but it is not exif-data.
If I open the jpeg with a simple text editor, I can see that the wanted informations are at the end of the file and seperated by \00.
Like this:
\00DATA\00DATA00DATA\00DATA\000\00DATA
Now if I use PHP's file_get_contents() to load the file into a string, the dividers \00 are gone and other symbols show up.
Like so:
ÿëžDATADATADATADATADATA ÿÙ
Could somebody please eplain:
Why do the \00 dividers vanish?
How to get the informations using PHP?
EDIT
The question is solved, but for those seeking a smarter solution, here is the file I try to obtain the DATA parts from: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5cwnlh2kadvi6f7/test-img.jpg?dl=0 (yes I know its corrupted)
Use instead $data = exif_read_data("PATH/some.jpg") it will give you all headers data about image, you can check its manual here - http://php.net/manual/en/function.exif-read-data.php
I came up with a solution on my own. May not be pretty, but works for me.
Using urlencode(file_get_contents()) I was able to retrieve the \00 parts as %00.
So now it reads like this:
%00DATA%00DATA%00DATA%00DATA%000%00DATA
I can split the string at the %00 parts.
I am going to accept this answer, once SO lets me do so and nobody comes up with a better solution.

Echo'ing a "{FORUM_NAME}" and Ignoring the "{}"

I'm looking for something that Is really hard for me to do.. I really tried to search all over the net for Solution, But I couldn't seem to find any. I also tried doing this for hours.
What I'm doing: Making a theme for PHPBB2, Installed a MOD that can include PHP in themes.
What is the problem: When I'm doing {} tags in php, It just can't echo those tags.
Let's say I have a function that creates a Table for me, like that:
CreateMyTable(Name,Size,Color);
I put in the function those strings:
CreateMyTable("{FORUM_NAME}",1000,red);
The title stays blank, I actually want it to echo {FORUM_NAME}.
How can I do this?
P.S: I can't do this
CreateMyTable(?>{FORUM_NAME}<?php , 1000, red);
It's not going to work becuase <? = <!-- PHP --> , ?> = <!-- ENDPHP -->.
Thanks for your help :)
If you look in the PHPbb2 template class, you'll find that the template is simply an evaluated set of PHP using the eval() function. You can either print the contents of the PHP before it is parsed using eval() and then use the variable name that the template gives, IE something like (which may not work depending how your template is setup):
CreateMyTable(((isset($this->_tpldata['.'][0]['FORUM_NAME'])) ? $this->_tpldata['.'][0]['FORUM_NAME'] : '' ),1000,randomcolor());
Please note, in order to do it similar to the way above you'd actually have to insert this into your template class.
An much better solution is to avoid using the mod that allows PHP in templates and use JavaScript in the templates to create the function, then print a call to that JavaScript function.
This will work:
CreateMyTable(FORUM_NAME,1000,red);
I also noticed that red is used without quotes - is this also a constant? If it's a variable it needs to have a $ in front of it. If it's a string it should be between quotes.
CreateMyTable(FORUM_NAME,1000,"red");

Having Two HTML issues with PHP DOM: 1.) DOMDocument::createEntityReference $name values and 2.) how to add multiple CSS classes an element?

Working with PHP DOM - HTML manipulation.
Got 2 questions
Recently read that, there is better way to output special html characters (e.g. ©): DOMDocument::createEntityReference() method. Main advantage is, you don't need to use htmlentities, it will be automatically escaped.
For ex: $copyright_symbol = $document->createEntityReference("copy");.
Now, the problem is, where can I find characters' code reference? In my case I need php equalent of × (× symbol)
What if I want to set muliple classes to element? Can I do it like that $el->setAttribute('class', 'class1 class2 ...') ??
here you can see character codes as well as friendly names. For your &#215, you will use "times"
and for the second question, yes, you can do it like that.

Gettext genitive

Let's say I want to display the following text to the user:
"John's car"
I'm using gettext to output it:
sprintf(_("%s's car"), $firstName)
The obvious problem is that, if the first name of the user ends in an S, we'll get something like this:
"James's car" (should be "James' car")
How do I solve that problem, especially considering that other languages might pose a similar challenge (different genitives depending on word ending or similar)?
Simply put: write a function with an explicit if to get the genitive form for a name, and print that instead. I'd provide an example but you haven't indicated what language we're talking about!

How does gettext handle dynamic content?

In php (or maybe gettext in general), what does gettext do when it sees a variable to dynamic content?
I have 2 cases in mind.
1) Let's say I have <?=$user1?> poked John <?=$user2?>. Maybe in some language the order of the words is different. How does gettext handle that? (no, I'm not building facebook, that was just an example)
2) Let's say I store some categories in a database. They rarely, but they are store in a database. What would happen if I do <?php echo gettext($data['name']); ?> ? I would like the translators to translate those category names too, but does it have to be done in the database itself?
Thanks
Your best option is to use sprintf() function. Then you would use printf notation to handle dynamic content in your strings. Here is a function I found on here a while ago to handle this easily for you:
function translate()
{
$args = func_get_args();
$num = func_num_args();
$args[0] = gettext($args[0]);
if($num <= 1)
return $args[0];
return call_user_func_array('sprintf', $args);
}
Now for example 1, you would want to change the string to:
%s poked %s
Which you would input into the translate() function like this:
<?php echo translate('%s poked %s', $user1, $user2); ?>
You would parse out all translate() functions with poEdit. and then translate the string "%s poked %s" into whatever language you wanted, without modifying the %s string placeholders. Those would get replace upon output by the translate() function with user1 and user2 respectively. You can read more on sprintf() in the PHP Manual for more advanced usages.
For issue #2. You would need to create a static file which poEdit could parse containing the category names. For example misctranslations.php:
<?php
_('Cars');
_('Trains');
_('Airplanes');
Then have poEdit parse misctranslations.php. You would then be able to output the category name translation using <?php echo gettext($data['name']); ?>
To build a little on what Mark said... the only problem with the above solution is that the static list must be always maintained by hand and if you add a new string before all the others or you completely change an existing one, the soft you use for translating might confuse the new strings and you could lose some translations.
I'm actually writing an article about this (too little time to finish it anytime soon!) but my proposed answer goes something like this:
Gettext allows you to store the line number that the string appears in the code inside the .po file. If you change the string entirely, the .po editor will know that the string is not new but it is an old one (thanks to the line number).
My solution to this is to write a script that reads the database and creates a static file with all the gettext strings. The big difference to Mark's solution is to have the primary key (let's call it ID) on the database match the line number in the new file. In that case, if you completely change one original translation, the lines are still the same and your translator soft will recognize the strings.
Of course there might be newer and more intelligent .po editors out there but at least if yours is giving you trouble with newer strings then this will solve them.
My 2 cents.
If you have somewhere in your code:
<?=sprintf(_('%s poked %s'), $user1, $user2)?>
and one of your languages needs to swap the arguments it is very simple. Simply translate your code like this:
msgid "%s poked %s"
msgstr "%2$s translation_of_poked %1$s"

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