24.1. Introduction
Zend_Locale
is the Frameworks answer to the question, "How can the same application be used around
the whole world?" Most people will say, "That's easy. Let's translate all our output to several languages."
However, using simple translation tables to map phrases from one language to another is not sufficient.
Different regions will have different conventions for first names, surnames, salutory titles, formatting of
numbers, dates, times, currencies, etc.
We need
Localization
and complementary
Internationalization
. Both are often abbreviated to L10n
and I18n
. Internationalization refers more to
support for use of systems, regardless of special needs unique to groups of users related by language, region,
number format conventions, financial conventions, time and date conventions, etc. Localization involves adding
explicit support to systems for special needs of these unique groups, such as language translation, and support
for local customs or conventions for communicating plurals, dates, times, currencies, names, symbols, sorting
and ordering, etc. L10n
and I18n
compliment each other. Zend Framework provides
support for these through a combination of components, including Zend_Locale
, Zend_Date
, Zend_Measure
,
Zend_Translate
, Zend_Currency
, and Zend_TimeSync
.
Zend_Locale and setLocale() | |
---|---|
PHP's documentation states that
When you are using |
24.1.1. What is Localization
Localization means that an application (or homepage) can be used from different users which speak different languages. But as you already have expected Localization means more than only translating strings. It includes
Zend_Locale
- Backend support of locales available for localization support within other ZF components.Zend_Translate
- Translating of strings.Zend_Date
- Localization of dates, times.Zend_Calendar
- Localization of calendars (support for non-Gregorian calendar systems)Zend_Currency
- Localization of currencies.Zend_Locale_Format
- Parsing and generating localized numbers.Zend_Locale_Data
- Retrieve localized standard strings as country names, language names and more from the CLDR .TODO
- Localization of collations
24.1.2. What is a Locale?
Each computer user makes use of Locales, even when they don't know it. Applications lacking localization
support, normally have implicit support for one particular locale (the locale of the author). When a class
or function makes use of localization, we say it is locale-aware
. How does the code know which
localization the user is expecting?
A locale string or object identifying a supported locale gives Zend_Locale
and its subclasses
Access to information about the language and region expected by the user. Correct formatting, normalization,
and conversions are made based on this information.
24.1.3. How are Locales Represented?
Locale identifiers consist of information about the user's language and preferred/primary geographic region
(e.g. state or province of home or workplace). The locale identifier strings used in Zend Framework are
internationally defined standard abbreviations of language and region, written as
language_REGION
. Both the language and region parts are abbreviated to alphabetic, ASCII
characters.
注意 | |
---|---|
Be aware that there exist not only locales with 2 characters as most people think. Also there
are languages and regions which are not only abbreviated with 2 characters. Therefor you should
NOT strip the region and language yourself, but use |
A user from USA would expect the language English
and the region USA
, yielding the
locale identifier "en_US". A user in Germany would expect the language German
and the region
Germany
, yielding the locale identifier "de_DE". See the
list of pre-defined locale and region combinations, if you need to select a specific locale within Zend Framework.
例 24.1. Choosing a specific locale
$locale = new Zend_Locale('de_DE'); // German language _ Germany
A German user in America might expect the language German
and the region USA
, but
these non-standard mixes are not supported directly as recognized "locales". Instead, if an invalid
combination is used, then it will automatically be truncated by dropping the region code. For example,
"de_IS" would be truncated to "de", and "xh_RU" would be truncated to "xh", because neither of these
combinations are valid. Additionally, if the base language code is not supported (e.g. "zz_US") or does not
exist, then a default "root" locale will be used. The "root" locale has default definitions for
internationally recognized representations of dates, times, numbers, currencies, etc. The truncation process
depends on the requested information, since some combinations of language and region might be valid for one
type of data (e.g. dates), but not for another (e.g. currency format).
Beware of historical changes, as ZF components do not know about or attempt to track the numerous timezone changes made over many years by many regions. For example, we can see a historical list showing dozens of changes made by governments to when and if a particular region observes Daylight Savings Time, and even which timezone a particular geographic area belongs. Thus, when performing date math, the math performed by ZF components will not adjust for these changes, but instead will give the correct time for the timezone using current, modern rules for DST and timezone assignment for geographic regions.
24.1.4. Selecting the Right Locale
For most situations, new Zend_Locale()
will automatically select the correct locale, with
preference given to information provided by the user's web browser. However, if new
Zend_Locale(Zend_Locale::ENVIRONMENT)
is used, then preference will be given to using the host
server's environment configuration, as described below.
例 24.2. Automatically selecting a locale
$locale = new Zend_Locale(); // default behavior, same as above $locale1 = new Zend_Locale(Zend_Locale::BROWSER); // prefer settings on host server $locale2 = new Zend_Locale(Zend_Locale::ENVIRONMENT); // perfer framework app default settings $locale3 = new Zend_Locale(Zend_Locale::FRAMEWORK);
The search algorithm used by Zend_Locale
for automatic selection of a locale uses three sources
of information:
const
Zend_Locale::BROWSER
- The user's Web browser provides information with each request, which is published by PHP in the global variableHttp_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE
. If no matching locale can be found, then preference is given toENVIRONMENT
and lastlyFRAMEWORK
.const
Zend_Locale::ENVIRONMENT
- PHP publishes the host server's locale via the PHP internal functionsetlocale()
. If no matching locale can be found, then preference is given to FRAMEWORK and lastly BROWSER.const
Zend_Locale::FRAMEWORK
- When Zend Framework has a standardized way of specifying component defaults (planned, but not yet available), then using this constant during instantiation will give preference to choosing a locale based on these defaults. If no matching locale can be found, then preference is given toENVIRONMENT
and lastlyBROWSER
.
24.1.5. Usage of automatic Locales
Zend_Locale
provides three additionally locales. These locales do not belong to
any language or region. They are "automatic" locales which means that they have the same effect
as the method getDefault()
but without the negative effects like creating an instance.
These "automatic" locales can be used anywhere, where also a standard locale and also the
definition of a locale, its string representation, can be used. This offers simplicity for
situations like working with locales which are provided by a browser.
There are three locales which have a slightly different behaviour:
-
'browser'
-Zend_Locale
should work with the information which is provided by the user's Web browser. It is published by PHP in the global variableHTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE
.If a user provides more than one locale within his browser,
Zend_Locale
will use the first found locale. If the user does not provide a locale or the script is being called from the command line the automatic locale'environment'
will automatically be used and returned. -
'environment'
-Zend_Locale
should work with the information which is provided by the host server. It is published by PHP via the internal functionsetlocale()
.If a environment provides more than one locale,
Zend_Locale
will use the first found locale. If the host does not provide a locale the automatic locale'browser'
will automatically be used and returned. -
'auto'
-Zend_Locale
should automatically detect any locale which can be worked with. It will first search for a users locale and then, if not successful, search for the host locale.If no locale can be detected, it will throw an exception and tell you that the automatic detection has been failed.
例 24.3. Using automatic locales
// without automatic detection //$locale = new Zend_Locale(Zend_Locale::BROWSER); //$date = new Zend_Date($locale); // with automatic detection $date = new Zend_Date('auto');
24.1.6. Using a default Locale
In some environments it is not possible to detect a locale automatically. You can expect this behaviour when you get an request from command line or the requesting browser has no language tag set and additionally your server has the default locale 'C' set or another proprietary locale.
In such cases Zend_Locale
will normally throw an exception with a message that
the automatic detection of any locale was not successful. You have two options to handle such
a situation. Either through setting a new locale per hand, or defining a default locale.
例 24.4. Handling locale exceptions
// within the bootstrap file try { $locale = new Zend_Locale('auto'); } catch (Zend_Locale_Exception $e) { $locale = new Zend_Locale('de'); } // within your model/controller $date = new Zend_Date($locale);
But this has one big negative effect. You will have to set your locale object within
every class using Zend_Locale
. This could become very unhandy if you are using
multiple classes.
Since Zend Framework Release 1.5 there is a much better way to handle this. You can set a
default locale which the static setDefault()
method. Of course, every unknown
or not full qualified locale will also throw an exception. setDefault()
should
be the first call before you initiate any class using Zend_Locale
. See the
following example for details:
例 24.5. Setting a default locale
// within the bootstrap file Zend_Locale::setDefault('de'); // within your model/controller $date = new Zend_Date();
In the case that no locale can be detected, automatically the locale de will be used. Otherwise, the detected locale will be used.
24.1.7. ZF Locale-Aware Classes
In the ZF, locale-aware classes rely on Zend_Locale
to automatically select a locale, as
explained above. For example, in a ZF web application, constructing a date using Zend_Date
without specifying a locale results in an object with a locale based on information provided by the current
user's web browser.
例 24.6. Dates default to correct locale of web users
$date = new Zend_Date('2006',Zend_Date::YEAR);
To override this default behavior, and force locale-aware ZF components to use specific locales, regardless of the origin of your website visitors, explicitly specify a locale as the third argument to the constructor.
例 24.7. Overriding default locale selection
$usLocale = new Zend_Locale('en_US'); $date = new Zend_Date('2006', Zend_Date::YEAR, $usLocale); $temp = new Zend_Measure_Temperature('100,10', Zend_Measure::TEMPERATURE, $usLocale);
If you know many objects should all use the same default locale, explicitly specify the default locale to avoid the overhead of each object determining the default locale.
例 24.8. Performance optimization when using a default locale
$locale = new Zend_Locale(); $date = new Zend_Date('2006', Zend_Date::YEAR, $locale); $temp = new Zend_Measure_Temperature('100,10', Zend_Measure::TEMPERATURE, $locale);
24.1.8. Application wide locale
Zend Framework allows the usage of an application wide locale. You simply set an instance of
Zend_Locale
to the registry with the key 'Zend_Locale'. Then this instance will
be used within all locale aware classes of Zend Framework. This way you set one locale within
your registry and then you can forget about setting it again. It will automatically be used
in all other classes. See the below example for the right usage:
例 24.9. Usage of an application wide locale
// within your bootstrap $locale = new Zend_Locale('de_AT'); Zend_Registry::set('Zend_Locale', $locale); // within your model or controller $date = new Zend_Date(); // print $date->getLocale(); echo $date->getDate();
24.1.9. Zend_Locale_Format::setOptions(array $options)
The 'precision' option of a value is used to truncate or stretch extra digits. A value of '-1' disables
modification of the number of digits in the fractional part of the value. The 'locale' option helps when
parsing numbers and dates using separators and month names. The date format 'format_type' option selects between
CLDR/ISO date format specifier tokens and PHP's date() tokens. The 'fix_date' option enables or disables
heuristics that attempt to correct invalid dates. The 'number_format' option specifies a default number
format for use with toNumber()
(see
第 24.3.2 节 “Number localization”
).
The 'date_format' option can be used to specify a default date format string, but beware of using getDate(), checkdateFormat() and getTime() after using setOptions() with a 'date_format'. To use these four methods with the default date format for a locale, use array('date_format' => null, 'locale' => $locale) for their options.
例 24.10. Dates default to correct locale of web users
Zend_Locale_Format::setOptions(array('locale' => 'en_US', 'fix_date' => true, 'format_type' => 'php'));
For working with the standard definitions of a locale the option Zend_Locale_Format::STANDARD
can be used.
Setting the option Zend_Locale_Format::STANDARD
for date_format
uses the standard definitions from the actual
set locale. Setting it for number_format uses the standard number format for this locale.
And setting it for locale uses the standard locale for this environment or browser.
例 24.11. Using STANDARD definitions for setOptions()
Zend_Locale_Format::setOptions(array('locale' => 'en_US', 'date_format' => 'dd.MMMM.YYYY')); // overriding the global set date format $date = Zend_Locale_Format::getDate('2007-04-20', array('date_format' => Zend_Locale_Format::STANDARD); // global setting of the standard locale Zend_Locale_Format::setOptions(array('locale' => Zend_Locale_Format::STANDARD, 'date_format' => 'dd.MMMM.YYYY'));
24.1.10. Speed up Zend_Locale
and its subclasses
Zend_Locale
and its subclasses can be speed up by the usage of Zend_Cache
.
Use the static method Zend_Locale::setCache($cache)
if you are using
Zend_Locale
. Zend_Locale_Format
can be speed up the using the option
cache
within Zend_Locale_Format::setOptions(array('cache' => $adapter));
.
If you are using both classes you should only set the cache for Zend_Locale
, otherwise
the last set cache will overwrite the previous set cache. For convenience there are also the static
methods getCache()
, hasCache()
, clearCache()
and
removeCache()
.