Re: [PHP] Multilingual Web application - how to?

Denis Gerasimov wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> I need to develop a multilingual web site and I am looking for the best way
> of handling this task. There are three main issues I know:
> 
> 1. Storing multilingual data in a database. Possible solutions I know:
> a. many tables, one per each supported language, e.g. news_en, news_de.
> b. one table having many columns with translations, e.g. (id, date, text_en,
> text_de)
> We use MySQL 4.1 as a back-end.

what about 1 table, 3 columns:

translatekey (varchar) 		- string to translate
lang		       		- lang code/id/name
translation  (varchar/text) 	- translated string

> 
> 2. Multilingual HTML templates, possible solutions:
> a. one generic template for everything, one per each language, like
> contents_en.tpl.html, contents_de.tpl.html
> b. many localized templates for each page, e.g news_en.tpl.html,
> news_de.tpl.html
> Template engine is Smarty.

using Smarty I sometimes assign an assoc array of translated strings:

$Lang['yes'] = 'yessiree';
$Lang['no']  = 'nocando';

then in Smarty:

<div class="LangExample">
'yes' is {$Lang.yes},
'no'  is {$Lang.no}
</div>

> 
> 3. Storing current language variable, possible solutions:
> a. inside the URL like /en/news/

best in terms of SEO.

> b. using cookies

handy for presistence.

> c. using sessions

provides cleaner URLS.

I see no reason to do all 3.

> Web server is Apache2+mod_rewrite with PHP5
> 
> What are pros and cons for each solution? What are other possible solutions
> for the above issues?
> 
> Best regards, Denis Gerasimov
> Outsourcing Services Manager,
> VEKOS, Ltd.
> www.vekos.ru
>