aci20 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:12:03 +0000

Just to tidy things up, I'll tell you how I got around it - works nicely.

It's essentially my latter approach. I define a subroutine within my initialisation code (common for every page), listed below (with apologies for poor grammar!):

sub pt{
our $tstring=$_[0];
our $tstringnonewline=$_[1];
$tstring=~s/\{/|\~/g;
$tstring=~s/\}/\|/g;
my @tstring=split(/\|/,$tstring);
my $result='';
foreach (@tstring){
$tword=$_;
if(/^~/){
$tword=~s/\~//g;
if(substr($tword,0,1) eq "#"){
$tword=~s/\#//g;
$usedict='common';
$twordesc=$tword;
$twordesc=~s/([^\w()'*~!.-])/sprintf '%%%02x', ord $1/eg;
if($transcom{$tword} ne ""){
$tword=$transcom{$tword};
}
}else{
$usedict='specific';
$twordesc=$tword;
$twordesc=~s/([^\w()'*~!.-])/sprintf '%%%02x', ord $1/eg;
if($trans{$tword} ne ""){
$tword=$trans{$tword};
}
}
if($translate eq "yes"){
$tword="<span onClick=\"window.open('translate.cgi?text=$twordesc&usedict=$usedict','manualpredict','scrollbars,height=100,width=300');return false;\"><img src=/images/site/openphrase.gif width=5 height=7 border=0></span>$tword<span onClick=\"window.open('translate.cgi?text=$twordesc&usedict=$usedict','manualpredict','scrollbars,height=100,width=300');return false;\"><img src=/images/site/closephrase.gif width=5 height=7 border=0></span>";
}
}
$result=$result.$tword;
}
if($tstringnonewline){
print "$result";
}else{
print "$result\n";
}
return $result;
}

So essentially when coding I just have to type something like

pt("{I have} $apples {apples}");'

and the subroutine will look up anything inside the curly braces and translate it using a text dictionary, or leave it as it is if no translation is found. What's more, when in 'translate mode', translatable text is shown between two .gifs - click on one and you are prompted to enter a direct translation for that snippet of text. Evey page/script has its own dictionary (e.g. myhome.cgi would have a dictionary file myhome.txt), but if, for example, the word "apples" appears on many different pages, I can type my code thus:

pt("{I have} $apples {#apples}");'

and the '#' indicates that I use a common dictionary.

Language is selected by clicking a flag, which sets a cookie, and all I need now is a user who can speak the relevant language(s) to click on the translatable code in his/her own time.

Any questions, message me and I'll be happy to explain in more detail.

Thanks all.

Abhishek Reddy — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:58:04 +0000

I suspect there is no simple solution. You may need to add a site-wide layer of abstraction somehow for the languages -- such as a translator, and/or a database of strings. If your program hasn't been designed with sufficient modularity, it could get very complicated.

The Perl, Unicode and i18N FAQ may be a good place to start. I quote:

Quote:
A1. Internationalizing a product involves issues about program design, application language features, cultural practices, fonts and often legacy clients. Most programmers face a rude awakening when first internationalizing an application after a career of only ASCII. Little details often become big headaches.

aci20 — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:12:35 +0000

Thanks demonhale - but you're right, it's not really the thing!

I think I've been a bit too vague, so here's a bit more detail. Essentially, I'm after a more elegant way of doing the equivalent of

if ($language eq "french") {
print "J'ai $applecount pommes.";
} else {
print "I have $applecount apples.";
}

'
One crude way would be

print "$predefinedtext[1] $applecount $predefinedtext[2].";
#(where @predefinedtext is loaded from the appropriate file,
#or just stated explicitly as a hash array)

'
This is pretty hideous to edit/debug!

Another way might be

sub printtranslatedtext {
#some code here parses $_ for text between curly braces
#and replaces it if a translation is found
#in the appropriate hash array.
}

#and later on we call the function
printtranslatedtext("{I have} $applecount {apples}.");
#instead of the usual print......

'
The latter option seems CPU-heavy and still a bit crude, but does at least allow me to have a 'translate' mode where links/underlines appear by the chunks of text allowing the site owner to edit the translation array/file himself (and potentially making a Swahili version a goer!).

Something along those lines. I still think there must be a better way!

demonhale — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:53:56 +0000

It wouldnt be the solution you may be looking for, but I think if you used CMS like joomla/mambo for example there are already some language plugs for those...

Or you could check the plugin developers for those language and see what they do to translate pages...