Locale guide

The Locale module provides a mechanism to build apps that adapt to users using different languages, timezones, currencies and other local unit standards.

To allow your app to work with different languages and localization settings, you must at least set up the availableLocales, defaultLocale, canonicalLocale and availableLanguages configuration keys in the config/Locale.config.php file like this:

<?php

namespace Cherrycake;

$LocaleConfig = [
	"availableLocales" => [
		"main" => [
			"language" => LANGUAGE_ENGLISH,
			"dateFormat" => DATE_FORMAT_MIDDLE_ENDIAN,
			"temperatureUnits" => TEMPERATURE_UNITS_FAHRENHEIT,
			"currency" => CURRENCY_USD,
			"decimalMark" => DECIMAL_MARK_POINT,
			"measurementSystem" => MEASUREMENT_SYSTEM_IMPERIAL,
			"timeZone" => TIMEZONE_ID_ETC_UTC
		]
	],
	"defaultLocale" => "main",
	"canonicalLocale" => "main",
	"availableLanguages" => [LANGUAGE_ENGLISH]
];

• availableLocales The different localizations your app will support. See the Locale configuration for an explanation of the available options.

• defaultLocale The name of the locale to use as default.

• canonicalLocale The name of the locale to be considered the main locale of the app.

• availableLanguages An array of the languages that will be available in the app, from the available LANGUAGE_? constants.

If you don't setup your own availableLocales, or if you don't create a Locale configuration file at all, a default locale named main will be used with the default configuration values.

Once your availableLocales are in place, you can choose the locale to use by calling the Locale::setLocale method. From that point on, all the texts, dates, timezones and other localized data will be retrieved using that locale's setup. For example:

echo $e->Locale->formatTimestamp(time());
echo $e->Locale->formatCurrency(19.5);
echo $e->Locale->getTimeZoneName();

5/18/20
USD19.50
Etc/UTC

Multiple locales

If your app supports multiple localized versions with different languages or localization configurations, you just add more locales to your Locale.config.php file. Imagine we have a web site with a global version in english, and a local version for Spain:

<?php

namespace Cherrycake;

$LocaleConfig = [
	"availableLocales" => [
		"global" => [
			"language" => LANGUAGE_ENGLISH,
			"dateFormat" => DATE_FORMAT_MIDDLE_ENDIAN,
			"temperatureUnits" => TEMPERATURE_UNITS_FAHRENHEIT,
			"currency" => CURRENCY_USD,
			"decimalMark" => DECIMAL_MARK_POINT,
			"measurementSystem" => MEASUREMENT_SYSTEM_IMPERIAL,
			"timeZone" => TIMEZONE_ID_ETC_UTC
		],
		"spain" => [
			"language" => LANGUAGE_SPANISH,
			"dateFormat" => DATE_FORMAT_LITTLE_ENDIAN,
			"temperatureUnits" => TEMPERATURE_UNITS_CELSIUS,
			"currency" => CURRENCY_EURO,
			"decimalMark" => DECIMAL_MARK_COMMA,
			"measurementSystem" => MEASUREMENT_SYSTEM_METRIC,
			"timeZone" => TIMEZONE_ID_EUROPE_MADRID
		]
	],
	"defaultLocale" => "global",
	"canonicalLocale" => "global",
	"availableLanguages" => [LANGUAGE_ENGLISH, LANGUAGE_SPANISH]
];

Now, we can switch the working locale whenever we need, and Locale will act accordingly:

echo $e->Locale->formatTimestamp(time());
echo $e->Locale->formatCurrency(19.5);
echo $e->Locale->getTimeZoneName();

$e->Locale->setLocale("spain");

echo $e->Locale->formatTimestamp(time());
echo $e->Locale->formatCurrency(19.5);
echo $e->Locale->getTimeZoneName();

5/18/20
USD19.50
Etc/UTC

18/5/20
19,50€
Europe/Madrid

See this example working in the Cherrycake documentation examples site.