PHP : Internationalization and Localization - [16.9] Localizing Included Files

16.9.1 Problem

You want to include locale-specific files in your pages.

16.9.2 Solution

Dynamically modify the include_path once you've determined the appropriate locale:

$base = '/usr/local/php-include';
$LANG = 'en_US';

$include_path = ini_get('include_path');
ini_set('include_path',"$base/$LANG:$base/global:$include_path");

16.9.3 Discussion

The $base variable holds the name of the base directory for your included localized files. Files that are not locale-specific go in the global subdirectory of $base, and locale-specific files go in a subdirectory named after their locale (e.g., en_US). Prepending the locale-specific directory and then the global directory to the include path makes them the first two places PHP looks when you include a file. Putting the locale-specific directory first ensures that nonlocalized information is loaded only if localized information isn't available.

This technique is similar to what the img( ) function does in the Section 16.8. Here, however, you can take advantage of PHP's include_path feature to have the directory searching happen automatically. For maximum utility, reset include_path as early as possible in your code, preferably at the top of a file loaded via auto_prepend_file on every request.