A description of the internationalisation provided by the Yii Framework. As presented to the Yii London Meetup on 15 May 2013.

1. Yii Framework
i18n – Internationalisation
Cass Surek
cass@surek.co.uk

2. Motivation
• Expand product reach
• Cater for multiple markets
• Improve usability

3. i18n - Internationalisation
• Software design process
• Multiple targets
• Multiple languages
• Multiple regions
• Avoid structural changes
• i + 18 letters + n – coined by DEC in the ’70s

4. L10n - Localisation
• Software adaptation process
• Based on internationalised software
• Use of locales
• Term translation

5. Yii support for i18n + L10n
• Locale and language
• Translation
• Date and Time Formatting
• Number Formatting

6. Locale
• CLocale class – e.g. Yii::app()->locale->dateFormat
• Locale codes: en_us, pt_br, en_gb, es (standardised
lowercase)
• Provides locale specific parameters
– Date format
– Currency symbols
– Month names
– Etc

7. Language
• Active locale setup on config file or at runtime
• Alters error messages to target language
Source
Language
(en_us)
Target Language 1
(pt_br)
Target Language 2
(es)
Target Language 3
(fr_fr)

8. Activation - setup
• Config file
– /protected/config/main.php
• Array(‘sourceLanguage’=>’en_gb’,
‘language’=>’pt_br’)
• Runtime
• Yii::app()->language= ‘pt_br’;

9. Translation
•Messages
•Views

10. Translation - Messages
Storage formats
– CPhpMessageSource (protected/messages)
– CGettextMessageSource (GNU Gettext files)
– CDbMessageSource (term tables)
• Yii::t(’category', 'Path alias "{alias}" is redefined.’,
array('{alias}'=>$alias))

11. Translation - Views
• CApplication::findLocalizedFile() – returns
language view file name if exists
• protected/views/ControllerID/zh_cn/edit.php
• Also used for images and data files

12. Date and Time Formatting
• CDateFormatter class
– Yii::app()->dateFormatter
• Uses current locale format
• Example
– Yii::app()->dateFormatter->formatDateTime(time())

13. Number Formatting
• CNumberFormatter class
– Yii::app()->numberFormatter
• Uses current locale format
• Example
– Yii::app()->numberFormatter->formatDecimal("8495873.00")

14. DEMO