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Laravel Translation

Description

Translation is a developer friendly, database driven, automatic translator for Laravel 5.*. Wouldn't it be nice to just write text regularly on your application and have it automatically translated, added to the database, and cached at runtime? Take this for example:

Controller:

public function index(Request $request)
{
    return view('home.index');
}

View:

@extends('layout.default')

{{ _t('Welcome to our home page') }}

Seen:

Welcome to our home page

When you visit the page, you won't notice anything different, but if you take a look at your database, your default application locale has already been created, and the translation attached to that locale.

Now if we set locale to something different, such as French (fr), it'll automatically translate it for you.

Controller:

public function index(Request $request)
{
    Translation::setLocale('fr');

    return view('home.index');
}

View:

@extends('layout.default')

{{ _t('Welcome to our home page') }}

Seen:

Bienvenue sur notre page d'accueil

We can even use placeholders for dynamic content:

View:

{{ _t('Welcome :name, to our home page', ['name' => 'John']) }}

Seen:

Bienvenue John , à notre page d'accueil

Notice that we didn't actually change the text inside the view, which means everything stays completely readable in your locale to you (the developer!), which means no more managing tons of translation files and trying to decipher what text may be inside that dot-notated translation path:

{{ trans('page.home.index.welcome') }}

Installation

Require the translation package

composer require ricardosierra/translation

Add the service provider to your config/app.php config file (Laravel 5.8 and lower)

Translation\TranslationServiceProvider::class,

Add the facade to your aliases in your config/app.php config file (Laravel 5.8 and lower)

'Translation' => Translation\Facades\Translation::class,

Publish the migrations

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Translation\TranslationServiceProvider"

Run the migrations

php artisan migrate

Your good to go!

Usage

Anywhere in your application, either use the the shorthand function (can be disabled in config file)

_t('Translate me!')

Or

Translation::translate('Translate me!')

This is typically most useful in blade views:

{{ _t('Translate me!') }}

And you can even translate models easily by just plugging in your content:

{{ _t($post->title) }}

Or use placeholders:

{{ _t('Post :title', ['title' => $post->title]) }}

In your locales database table you'll have:

| id | code |  name  | display_name | lang_code |
   1    en    English      NULL          NULL

In your translations database table you'll have:

| id | locale_id | translation_id | translation |
  1        NULL         NULL        'Translate me!'

To switch languages for the users session, all you need to call is:

Translation::setLocale('fr') // Setting to French locale

Locales are automatically created when you call the Translation::setLocale($code) method, and when the translate function is called, it will automatically create a new translation record for the new locale, with the default locale translation. The default locale is taken from the laravel app.php config file.

Now, once you visit the page you'll have this in your locales table:

| id | code | name | display_name | lang_code |
   1    en    English     NULL         NULL
   2    fr    French      NULL         NULL

And this in your translations table:

| id | locale_id | translation_id | translation |
   1        1         NULL        'Translate me!'
   2        2          1          'Traduisez-moi !'

You can now update the translation on the new record and it will be shown wherever it's called:

_t('Translate me!')`

Need to translate a single piece of text without setting the users default locale?

Just pass in the locale into the third argument inside the translation functions show above like so:

View:

{{ _t('Our website also supports russian!', [], 'ru') }}

<br>

{{ _t('And french!', [], 'fr') }}

Seen:

Наш сайт также поддерживает России !

Et françaises !

This is great for showing users that your site supports different languages without changing the entire site language itself. You can also perform replacements like usual:

View:

{{ _t('Hello :name, we also support french!', ['name' => 'John Doe'], 'fr') }}

Seen:

Bonjour John Doe , nous soutenons aussi le français !

Performing this will also create the locale in your database, save the translation, and cache it in case you need it again.

You must provide you're own way of updating translations (controllers/views etc) using the eloquent models provided.

Injecting Translation

As of v1.3.4 you can now inject the Translation contract into your controllers without the use of a facade:

Models

By default, two models are included and selected inside the configuration file. If you'd like to use your own models you must create them and implement their trait. Here's an example:

The Locale Model:

The Translation Model:

Once you've created these models, insert them into the translation.php configuration file:

Routes

Translating your site with a locale prefix couldn't be easier. First inside your app/Http/Kernel.php file, insert the locale middleware:

<?php
 /**
 * The application's route middleware.
 *
 * @var array
 */
protected $routeMiddleware = [
    'auth' => \App\Http\Middleware\Authenticate::class,
    'auth.basic' => \Illuminate\Auth\Middleware\AuthenticateWithBasicAuth::class,
    'guest' => \App\Http\Middleware\RedirectIfAuthenticated::class,

    // Insert Locale Middleware
    'locale' => \Translation\Middleware\LocaleMiddleware::class
];

Now, in your routes/web.php file, insert the middleware and the following Translation method in the route group prefix like so:

You should now be able to access routes such as:

http://localhost/home
http://localhost/en/home
http://localhost/fr/home

New Additions

You can also the local in HTTP request. Especially during API calls

Examples

Header -> locale=fr
Cookies -> locale=it
QueryString -> locale=es

You can also set local info in the session in Laravel

## Automatic Translation

Automatic translation is enabled by default in the configuration file. It utilizes the fantastic package Google Translate PHP by Stichoza. Using automatic translation will send the inserted text to google and save the returned text to the database. Once a translation is saved in the database, it is never sent back to google to get re-translated. This means that you don't have to worry about hitting a cap that google may impose. You effectively own that translation.

Questions / Concerns

Why are there underscores where my placeholders should be in my database translations?

When you add placeholders to your translation, and add the data to replace it, for example:

_t('Hi :name', ['name' => 'John'])

Translation parses each entry in the data array to see if the placeholder actually exists for the data inserted. For example, in the translation field in your database, here is what is saved:

_t('Hi :name', ['name' => 'John']) // Hi __name__

_t('Hi :name', ['test' => 'John']) // Hi :name

Since the placeholder data inserted doesn't match a placeholder inside the string, the text will be left as is. The reason for the underscores is because google translate will try to translate text containing :name, however providing double underscores on both sides of the placeholder, prevents google from translating that specific word, allowing us to translate everything else, but keep placeholders in tact. Translation then replaces the double underscore variant of the placeholder (in this case __name__) at runtime.

If I update / modify the text inside the translation function, what happens to it's translations?

If you modify the text inside a translation function, it will create a new record and you will need to translate it again. This is intended because it could be a completely different translation after modification.

For example using:

{{ _t('Welcome!') }}

And modifying it to:

{{ _t('Welcome') }}

Would automatically generate a new translation record.

Is there a maximum amount of text that can be auto-translated?

Update: This package now uses Stichoza's new 3.0 update. This allows you to translate up to 4200 words per request (tested, possibly more allowed).

Yes, according to Google Translate PHP there is a 1300 word limit per request. Just be sure to break you're content up so you don't hit the limit.

Issues

I'm trying to set the locale in my routes file but it never changes?

Are you using the file driver for sessions by chance? This is a known issue with the Laravel 5 file session driver https://github.com/laravel/framework/issues/8244.

Use another session driver for the time being, such as array or database.