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Pass variables in language calls within tpl f…

11/07/2009 11:47 PM

443	1	1

This is not an easy mod to explain.

Sometimes you may want to pass variables from a template to a language call:

Like have a string output:
"Welcome Idealists to VldCrowd.com! You can post up to 5 blog posts today."

Where:
Idealists is a username
VldCrowd.com is app_title
5 is some limit set somewhere (daily_blog_post_limit)

Currently it is not possible to do such language string manipulation within a tpl file itself.

All that is required for this example, is a language definition:

"vldcrowd_welcome_message" => //MOD

"Welcome %1% to %2%! You can post up to %3% blog posts today", //MOD

And then within the tpl file you would call the language string normally except now you pass the variables as such (variable 1 to 3, from left to right):
{lang:"custom","vldcrowd_welcome_message",session.username,settings.app_title, session.daily_blog_post_limit}

Only change is to replace (backup original ofcourse) the function vldext_lang within your ext.lang.php which is under /includes/ext/core with:

PHP

function vldext_lang ($mod, $key, $value1 = "", $value2 = "", $value3 = "")
{
global $LANG;

$language_string = isset($LANG[$mod][$key]) ? nl2br($LANG[$mod][$key]) : $key;

$variables = array("%1%", "%2%", "%3%");

$values = array("$value1","$value2","$value3");

$language_string = str_replace($variables, $values, $language_string);

return $language_string;

}

Also this will output the variable name instead of "Unknown field" if the field isn't found within the language definition. A bit more user friendly, and if you name your fields well, it should mean something to a user.

You can pass a max of 3 variables (if you know PHP you can easily increase it)
If you only need to pass 1 variable then it would be like:
{lang:"custom","vldcrowd_welcome_message",session.username}

If you don't need to pass variable it would be the same as old days, like:
{lang:"custom","vldcrowd_welcome_message"}

So no need to change all language calls.