Localization

Languages are not real Components, they are just files that holds translations.

Laravel localization features provide a convenient way to retrieve strings in various languages, allowing you to easily support multiple languages within your application.

Rules

• Languages CAN be placed inside the Containers. However, the default laravel resources/lang languages files are still loaded and can be used as well.

• All Translations are namespaced as the camelCase of its Section name + @ + camelCase of its Container name.
  For example, translation key inside a translation file named messages inside MySection > MyContainer can be accessed like this: __(mySection@myContainer::messages.welcome)

Folder Structure

- app
  - Containers
    - {Section}
      - {Container}
        - Resources
          - Languages
            - en
              - messages.php
              - users.php
            - ar
              - messages.php
              - users.php

Usage

__('myS
ection@myContainer::messages.welcome');

Installation

note

Intl PHP Extension is required to use this feature.

composer require apiato/localization-container

Creating new languages files

Languages file can be placed in any container, not only the Localization Container.
Place language files inside the /Languages folder of your container. For example app/Containers/Section/Container/Languages. You can also place general language files in app/Ship/Languages.

note

Just create the Languages folder if it does not exist in your container or app/Ship folder.

You can still use the default Laravel translations by placing language files in /lang folder.

Support new languages

All supported languages must be added to the supported_languages array in the vendor-localization.php config file to prevent users from requesting unsupported languages. There are 2 ways to do this: Using the configs or by modifying the source code.

    'supported_languages' => [
        'ar',
        'en' => [
            'en-GB',
            'en-US',
        ],
        'es',
        'fr',
        'fa',
    ],

Publishing configs

php artisan vendor:publish

Config file will be copied to app/Ship/Configs/vendor-localization.php

Modifying the source code

1- Copy the container from Vendor to AppSection (or any of your custom sections) of your project
2- Fix the namespaces
3- Remove apiato/localization-container dependency from project root composer.json

Select Request Language

You can select the language of the response by adding the header Accept-Language to the request. By default, the Accept-Language is set to the language defined in config/app.php locale.

Please note that Accept-Language only determines, that the client would like to get the information in this specific language. It is not given, that the API responds in this language!

When the Accept-Language header is missing, the default locale will be applied.

note

Please be sure that your client does not send an Accept-Language header automatically. Some REST clients (e.g., POSTMAN) automatically add header-fields based on the operating-systems settings. So your Accept-Language header may be set automatically without you knowing!

The API will answer with the applied language in the Content-Language header of the response.

If the requested language cannot be resolved (e.g. it is not defined) the API throws an UnsupportedLanguageException to tell the client about this.

The overall workflow of the Middleware is as follows:

1. Extract the Accept-Language field from the request header. If none is set, use the default locale from the config file
2. Build a list of all supported localizations based on the configuration of the respective container. If a language (top level) contains regions (sub-level), order them like this: ['en-GB', 'en-US', 'en'] (the regions before languages, as regions are more specific)
3. Check, if the value from 1) is within the list from 2). If the value is within this list, set it as application language, if not throw an Exception.

Translating Strings

By default, all the Container translation files are namespaced as the camelCase of its Section name + @ + camelCase of its Container name.

note

Translation files in Ship folder are exception to this and will be namespaced with the word "ship" instead of section name, e.g. __('ship::notifications.welcome')

Example

If a translation file called notifications is inside MySection > MyContainer that contains translation for welcome like "Welcome to our store :)". You can access this translation as follows __('mySection@myContainer::notifications.welcome'). If you remove the namespace (part before ::) and try to access it like this __('notifications.welcome') it will not find your translation and will print notifications.welcome only.

note

If you try to load a string for a language that is not available (e.g., there is no folder for this language), Apiato will stick to the default one that is defined in app.locale config file. This is also true, if the requested locale is present in the supported_languages array from the configuration file.

Enable/Disable Localization

When using this container, Localization is enabled by default. To disable it set LOCALIZATION_ENABLED to false in the .env file. You can also change this behaviour in the configs. This will disable the localization middleware.

Get Available Localizations

This container provides a convenient way to get all defined localizations. These localizations can be retrieved via GET /localizations by default. Note that this route only outputs the "top level" locales, like en from the example above. However, if specific regions (e.g., en-US) are defined, these will show up in the result as well.

The Transformer for the localizations not only provide the language (e.g., de), but also outputs the name of the language in this specific language (e.g., locale_name => Deutsch). Furthermore, the language name is outputted in the applications default name (e.g., configured in app.locale). This would result in default_name => German.

The same applies to the regions that are defined (e.g., de-DE). Consequently, this results in locale_name => Deutschland and default_name = Germany.

Tests

To change the default language in your tests requests. You can set the env language in the phpunit.xml file.