Introduction
Laravel's localization features provide a convenient way to retrieve
strings in various languages, allowing you to easily support multiple
languages within your application. Language strings are stored in files
within the resources/lang
directory. Within this directory
there should be a subdirectory for each language supported by the
application:
/resources
/lang
/en
messages.php
/es
messages.php
All language files simply return an array of keyed strings. For example:
<?php
return [
'welcome' => 'Welcome to our application'
];
Configuring The Locale
The default language for your application is stored in the
config/app.php
configuration file. Of course, you may
modify this value to suit the needs of your application. You may also
change the active language at runtime using the setLocale
method on the App
facade:
Route::get('welcome/{locale}', function ($locale) {
App::setLocale($locale);
//
});
You may configure a "fallback language", which will be used when the
active language does not contain a given language line. Like the default
language, the fallback language is also configured in the
config/app.php
configuration file:
'fallback_locale' => 'en',
Determining The Current Locale
You may use the getLocale
and isLocale
methods on the App
facade to determine the current locale
or check if the locale is a given value:
$locale = App::getLocale();
if (App::isLocale('en')) {
//
}
Retrieving Language Lines
You may retrieve lines from language files using the
trans
helper function. The trans
method
accepts the file and key of the language line as its first argument. For
example, let's retrieve the welcome
language line from the
resources/lang/messages.php
language file:
echo trans('messages.welcome');
Of course if you are using the Blade templating
engine, you may use the {{ }}
syntax to echo the
language line or use the @lang
directive:
{{ trans('messages.welcome') }}
@lang('messages.welcome')
If the specified language line does not exist, the trans
function will simply return the language line key. So, using the example
above, the trans
function would return
messages.welcome
if the language line does not exist.
Replacing Parameters In Language Lines
If you wish, you may define place-holders in your language lines. All
place-holders are prefixed with a :
. For example, you may
define a welcome message with a place-holder name:
'welcome' => 'Welcome, :name',
To replace the place-holders when retrieving a language line, pass an
array of replacements as the second argument to the trans
function:
echo trans('messages.welcome', ['name' => 'dayle']);
If your place-holder contains all capital letters, or only has its first letter capitalized, the translated value will be capitalized accordingly:
'welcome' => 'Welcome, :NAME', // Welcome, DAYLE
'goodbye' => 'Goodbye, :Name', // Goodbye, Dayle
Pluralization
Pluralization is a complex problem, as different languages have a variety of complex rules for pluralization. By using a "pipe" character, you may distinguish singular and plural forms of a string:
'apples' => 'There is one apple|There are many apples',
After defining a language line that has pluralization options, you
may use the trans_choice
function to retrieve the line for
a given "count". In this example, since the count is greater than one,
the plural form of the language line is returned:
echo trans_choice('messages.apples', 10);
Since the Laravel translator is powered by the Symfony Translation component, you may create even more complex pluralization rules which specify language lines for multiple number ranges:
'apples' => '{0} There are none|[1,19] There are some|[20,Inf] There are many',
Overriding Package Language Files
Some packages may ship with their own language files. Instead of
changing the package's core files to tweak these lines, you may override
them by placing files in the
resources/lang/vendor/{package}/{locale}
directory.
So, for example, if you need to override the English language lines
in messages.php
for a package named
skyrim/hearthfire
, you should place a language file at:
resources/lang/vendor/hearthfire/en/messages.php
. Within
this file, you should only define the language lines you wish to
override. Any language lines you don't override will still be loaded
from the package's original language files.