CodeIgniter: Parse dynamic language captions locat

Question

I have a javascript code that needs localisation, ie.

function js_proc() {
    var some_data = 'this text needs to be translated dynamically at runtime';
}

So I re-wrote like this:

function js_proc() {
    var some_data = <?php echo $this->lang->line('some_data_id'); ?>;
}

In the view, I wrote the js link like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="www.domain.com/codeigniter/get_js/file-1/"></script>

which calls the function get_js() in the controller. The idea is to have the get_js() function read the js file(s) and translate the language strings...

There are way too many js strings to be translated, so I can't pass every string as a variable. Ideally I'd like to make this work through the codeigniter language files.

My question is: is there a way to parse the php parts in the js file & executed (=translate) them? ie.

class App extends CI_Controller
{
    function get_js {
        $content = file_get_contents($js_file);
        echo parse_php($content);
    }
    ...
}

Thanks!

Answer 1

Depending on how big the language file is, a quick way to allow javascript to access your entire language array could be to load the array into a global javascript array;

<script>
    var globalLang = <?php echo json_encode($this->lang->language); ?>;
</script>

Then access in your javascript like this;

globalLang['some_lang_key']

Answer 2

Create a json object in the global scope of the page output for your javascript strings:

<script>
    var oGlobalStrings = {
            some_data : '<?=$this->lang->line('some_data_language_key');?>'
        }
</script>

Then you can use it throughout your Javascript app using the syntax:

oGlobalStrings.some_data

Works very well and can be handled very easily throughout your app.

Answer 3

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "There are way too many js strings to be translated, so I can't pass every string as a variable", but if you are looking for some automatic parsing, this won't help.

But this may help others, so here goes.

For from ideal, I use a system like the following:

In my view, I add the localizations as JavaScript global variables, using the codeigniter languages support. Something like:

<script type="text/javascript">
    var noEmailError = "<?php echo $this->lang->line('enter_your_email'); ?>";
</script>

Then after that, usually,right after, I include the scripts that refernce the globals:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/validate.js"></script>

inside the script:

alert(noEmailError);

will show the localized text just fine.