[Solar-talk] locale strings + replacements

[Rodrigo Moraes]

Hi,
Antti told me this idea some time ago: Solar::locale + replacements. I
don't remember of seeing he posting about this, so here it is. Let's
say we have a silly locale string like:

    'TEXT_MONKEYS_INVASION' => 'The %2$s contains %1$d monkeys.';

Then we can call the GetText helper passing replacements for the string:

    $data = array(7, 'house');
    echo $this->getText('TEXT_MONKEYS_INVASION', 1, $data)

...which will output:

    The house contains 7 monkeys.

As you see, the house is full of monkeys. I mean, this is useful for
building locale strings that are easily adapted to different language
grammars.

And all it needs is a basic change - add a parameter "replacements" to
the locale helpers and functions:

Solar_View_Helper_GetText
--------------------------------------
    public function getText($key, $num = 1, $replacements = null)
    {
        return $this->_view->escape($this->_view->getTextRaw($key,
$num, $replacements));
    }


Solar_View_Helper_GetTextRaw
--------------------------------------
    public function getTextRaw($key, $num = 1, $replacements = null)
    {
        // [snip]

        // get the translation
        return Solar::locale($class, $key, $num, $replacements);
    }

Solar
--------------------------------------
public static function locale($class, $key, $num = 1, $replacements = null)
{
    // [snip]

    // return the number-appropriate version of the
    // translated key, if multiple values exist.
    if ($num != 1 && ! empty($string[1])) {
        if(!$replacements) {
            return $string[1];
        } else {
            return vsprintf($string[1], $replacements);
        }
    } else {
        if(!$replacements) {
            return $string[0];
        } else {
            return vsprintf($string[0], $replacements);
        }
    }
}

Simple, huh? And it is so useful. Maybe you will find the strings ugly
with the sprintf specifications, but this is the simplest PHP
implementation, I think. Different implementations (using str_replace
or other functions) can be done on the helper level. Solar should
provide a simple way to use string replacements.

Do you think this would be flexible enough? Do you think something
like this should be implemented in the Solar::locale() level or only
in helpers?

But anyway, here's (more or less) Antti's idea (I hope; don't kill me,
Antti :-).

rodrigo

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