PHP gettext function only returns original untranslated string

Question

I'm trying to use gettext add localisation support to my website. I've followed various guides on how to setup gettext and have done the following:

I've created the following files and directories in the root of my project dir:

test.php

locale/
  de_DE
    LC_MESSAGES
       messages.mo
       messages.po

  en_GB
    LC_MESSAGES
       messages.mo
       messages.po

I've used Poedit to create the above .po and mo files. I've made sue it use Unix line endings, UTF-8 and set the language and country accordingly.

I've then created a PHP script called test.php which has the following code:

<?php

  define('LOCALE', 'de_DE');

  // Set up environmental variables
  putenv("LC_ALL=" . LOCALE);
  setlocale(LC_ALL, LOCALE);
  bindtextdomain("messages", "./locale");
  bind_textdomain_codeset("messages", LOCALE .".utf8");
  textdomain("messages");

  die(gettext('This is a test.'));

?>

I've imported the text "This is a test." to Poedit and supplied the translation and saved it.

But for some reason the test.php script will only output the original text untranslated. It refuses to load the version for the translation files.

It's worth noting that the server is running Linux (Ubuntu), Apache 2.2.11 and PHP 5.2.6-3ubuntu4.5. I've checked phpinfo() and gettext is enabled.

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 15 '10 at 18:14

Your problem might be related to a missing locale on your system. Please install the German locale and everything should work:

sudo apt-get install language-pack-de-base

Then, issue the following command and you should see the German locales:

locale -a

After that, the following code should work, assuming you still have the .po and .mo files on the directory structure you described:

  <?php

  setlocale(LC_ALL, 'de_DE.UTF-8');
  bindtextdomain('messages', './locale');
  textdomain('messages');

  echo gettext('This is a test.');

  ?>

So, did it work? Was it in fact a problem related with a missing locale or something else? — bpedro, Mar 16 '10 at 09:10

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 11 '10 at 14:36

1

Yes, yes, PHP's gettext support again. Just a hint, that might or might not be helpful to you:

Because of PHP's awful gettext implementation, many open source projects like WordPress switched to this one: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/php-gettext/ and completely bypass the original version.

I did it, too, in one of my projects, and I can't say that I miss anything.

Disadvantage for commercial projects: It's under the GPL.

answered Mar 11 '10 at 14:36

Boldewyn

81,211
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Interesting. I'll have a look at this. Arh though it being GPL is going to be a problem. – Camsoft Mar 11 '10 at 14:37
Not able to use this because like you said it's GPL and this issue I am having is on a commercial project. – Camsoft Mar 15 '10 at 20:54
I know the problem. We have here a closed-source project, too, and we are left to implement something ourself, because we can't use php-gettext (or want to rely on PHP's gettext module). However, I thought it's worth an answer, as it's an important project to incorporate in other GPL'ed PHP software. – Boldewyn Mar 16 '10 at 08:05

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 11 '10 at 14:23

0

try the following

<?php

  define(LC_MESSAGES, 'de_DE');

  // Set up environmental variables
  putenv("LANGUAGE=de_DE");
  bindtextdomain("*", dirname(__FILE__).'/locale');
  bind_textdomain_codeset("messages", 'UTF-8');      

  die(gettext('This is a test.'));

?>

answered Mar 11 '10 at 14:23

Gabriel Solomon

29,065
15
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Unfortunately this did not work. It still just displays the English version. – Camsoft Mar 11 '10 at 14:36

PHP gettext function only returns original untranslated string

3 Answers3