Localization

The Localization feature of HiveApi is provided by the Localization Container.

Select Request Language

A client can select the language of the response by adding the Accept-Language header to a request. By default the Accept-Language is set to the language defined in config/app.php locale.

Please note that Accept-Language only determines, that the client would like to get the information in this specific language. It is not given, that the API responds in this language (e.g., if respective language cannot be found). When the Accept-Language header is missing, the default locale will be applied.

Heads up!

Please be sure that your client does not send an Accept-Language header automatically. Some REST clients (e.g., POSTMAN) automatically add header-fields based on the operating systems settings. So your Accept-Language header may be set automatically without knowing!

The API will answer with the applied language in the Content-Language header of the response.

If the requested language cannot be resolved (e.g., it is not defined) the API throws an UnsupportedLanguageException to tell the client about this.

The overall workflow of the provided Middleware is as follows:

  1. Extract the Accept-Language field from the request header. If none is set, use the default locale from the config file
  2. Build a list of all supported localizations based on the configuration of the respective container. If a language (top level) contains regions (sub-level), order them like this: ['en-GB', 'en-US', 'en'] (the regions are ordered before languages, as regions are more specific)
  3. Check, if the value from 1) is within the list from 2). If the value is within this list, set it as application language, if not throw an Exception.

Support New Languages

  1. All languages to be supported are defined within the app/Containers/Localization/Configs/localization.php configuration file. For example, the configuration file may look like this:
<?php
    'supported_languages' => [
        'de',
        'en' => [
            'en-GB',
            'en-US',
        ],
        'es',
        'fr',
    ],
  1. Create new language files:

Language file can be placed in any container, not only the Localization Container. Refer to the Localization page for more details. Example languages files are included in the Welcome container at app/Containers/Welcome/Resources/Languages.

Translating Strings

By default all the translation within a Container are namespaced to the Container name.

Example

If a Container named Store has en translation file called notifications that contains translation for welcome like “Welcome to our store”. You can access this translation as follow trans('store::notifications.welcome'). If you remove the namespace (which is the lowercase of the container name) and try to access it like this trans('notifications.welcome') it will not find your translation and will print notifications.welcome only.

Heads up!

If you try to load a string for a language that is not available (e.g., there is no folder for this language), HiveApiwill stick to the default one that is defined in app.locale config file. This is also true, if the requested locale is present in the supported_languages array from the configuration file.

Disable the Localization Feature

You can remove the LocalizationMiddleware, by simply going to app/Containers/Localization/Providers/MainServiceProvider.php and removing the MiddlewareServiceProvider from the $serviceProviders property.

Get Available Localizations

HiveApi provides a convenient way to get all defined Localizations. These localizations can be retrieved via GET /localizations by default. Note that this route only outputs the “top level” locales, like en from the example above. However, if specific regions (e.g., en-US) are defined, these will show up in the result as well.

The Transformer for the localizations not only provide the language (e.g., de), but also outputs the name of the language in this specific language (e.g., locale_name => Deutsch). Furthermore, the language name is outputted in the applications default name (e.g., configured in app.locale). This would result in default_name => German.

The same applies to the regions that are defined (e.g., de-DE). Consequently, this results in locale_name => Deutschland and default_name = Germany.

Tests

To change the default language in your tests requests. You can set the env language in the configuration files.