Yii and multilingual URLs

Question

I'm trying to create multilingual application. I've implemented ability of translationable content and next step should be showing it to user. I want to have ability of changing language depending on URL. I've found a couple of components for those purposes but they all create urls which I don't like. For example, my application's default language is English and I have content which is translated into French. I have page "contacts", for instance. And URLs which will be generated by application will be: mysite.com/en/contacts, mysite.com/fr/contacts, but I want to have mysite.com/contacts for default language and mysite.com/fr/contacts for French language. It's simillar for site's root too. mysite.com/ - for default language and mysite.com/fr for French. Is there any methods for implementing these functionality?

Answer 1

I've found very elegant method for solving my problem on http://www.elisdn.ru

Reimplement CHttpRequest

class DLanguageHttpRequest extends CHttpRequest
{
    private $_requestUri;

    public function getRequestUri()
    {
        if ($this->_requestUri === null)
            $this->_requestUri = DMultilangHelper::processLangInUrl(parent::getRequestUri());

        return $this->_requestUri;
    }

    public function getOriginalUrl()
    {
        return $this->getOriginalRequestUri();
    }

    public function getOriginalRequestUri()
    {
        return DMultilangHelper::addLangToUrl($this->getRequestUri());
    }
}

Reimplement CUrlManager

class DLanguageUrlManager extends CUrlManager
{
    public function createUrl($route, $params=array(), $ampersand='&')
    {
        $url = parent::createUrl($route, $params, $ampersand);
        return DMultilangHelper::addLangToUrl($url);
    }
}

Change config

return array(
    'sourceLanguage'=>'en',
    'language'=>'ru',

    'components'=>array(
        'request'=>array(
            'class'=>'DLanguageHttpRequest',
            ...
        ),
        'urlManager'=>array(
            'class'=>'DLanguageUrlManager',
            ...
        ),
    ),

    ...

    'params'=>array(
        'translatedLanguages'=>array(
            'ru'=>'Russian',
            'en'=>'English',
            'de'=>'Deutsch',
        ),
        'defaultLanguage'=>'ru',
    ),
);

Create DMultilangHelper

class DMultilangHelper
{
    public static function enabled()
    {
        return count(Yii::app()->params['translatedLanguages']) > 1;
    }

    public static function suffixList()
    {
        $list = array();
        $enabled = self::enabled();

        foreach (Yii::app()->params['translatedLanguages'] as $lang => $name)
        {
            if ($lang === Yii::app()->params['defaultLanguage']) {
                $suffix = '';
                $list[$suffix] = $enabled ? $name : '';
            } else {
                $suffix = '_' . $lang;
                $list[$suffix] = $name;
            }
        }

        return $list;
    }

    public static function processLangInUrl($url)
    {
        if (self::enabled())
        {
            $domains = explode('/', ltrim($url, '/'));

            $isLangExists = in_array($domains[0], array_keys(Yii::app()->params['translatedLanguages']));
            $isDefaultLang = $domains[0] == Yii::app()->params['defaultLanguage'];

            if ($isLangExists && !$isDefaultLang)
            {
                $lang = array_shift($domains);
                Yii::app()->setLanguage($lang);
            }

            $url = '/' . implode('/', $domains);
        }

        return $url;
    }

    public static function addLangToUrl($url)
        if (self::enabled())
        {
            $domains = explode('/', ltrim($url, '/'));
            $isHasLang = in_array($domains[0], array_keys(Yii::app()->params['translatedLanguages']));
            $isDefaultLang = Yii::app()->getLanguage() == Yii::app()->params['defaultLanguage'];

            if ($isHasLang && $isDefaultLang)
                array_shift($domains);

            if (!$isHasLang && !$isDefaultLang)
                array_unshift($domains, Yii::app()->getLanguage());

            $url = '/' . implode('/', $domains);
        }

        return $url;
    }
}

After all of these steps your application will have URLs which you want More information here

Answer 2

I'm using XUrlManager extension XUrlManager on GitHub

Yii generates URL's based on UrlManager rules. If you want URL's without /lang/ code - you need just create correct rules. For example, if you dublicate records in rules array:

'rules'=>array(
    '<_c:\w+>/<_a:\w+>'=>'<_c>/<_a>',
    '<language:\w{2}>/<_c:\w+>/<_a:\w+>'=>'<_c>/<_a>',
);

your URL's will be generated withou /en/ and /fr/, but URL's with code works too. By default, XUrlManager use previously selected language and store this in session or cookie.

If you want only hide /en/ and use /fr/ and others always, you can change your XUrlManager extension with:

public function createUrl($route,$params=array(),$ampersand='&')
{
    if(!isset($params['language']) && Yii::app()->language!=='en')
        $params['language']=Yii::app()->language;
    return parent::createUrl($route,$params,$ampersand);
}