Search by Algolia
Back to symfony.com

Using the Translator

Edit this page

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 4.2, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 6.1 (the current stable version).

Using the Translator

Imagine you want to translate the string "Symfony is great" into French:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
use Symfony\Component\Translation\Loader\ArrayLoader;
use Symfony\Component\Translation\Translator;

$translator = new Translator('fr_FR');
$translator->addLoader('array', new ArrayLoader());
$translator->addResource('array', [
    'Symfony is great!' => 'Symfony est super !',
], 'fr_FR');

var_dump($translator->trans('Symfony is great!'));

In this example, the message "Symfony is great!" will be translated into the locale set in the constructor (fr_FR) if the message exists in one of the message catalogs.

Creating Translations

The act of creating translation files is an important part of "localization" (often abbreviated L10n). Translation files consist of a series of id-translation pairs for the given domain and locale. The source is the identifier for the individual translation, and can be the message in the main locale (e.g. "Symfony is great") of your application or a unique identifier (e.g. symfony.great - see the sidebar below).

Translation files can be created in several formats, XLIFF being the recommended format. These files are parsed by one of the loader classes.

  • XML
  • YAML
  • PHP 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xliff version="1.2" xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
    <file source-language="en" datatype="plaintext" original="file.ext">
        <body>
            <trans-unit id="symfony_is_great">
                <source>Symfony is great</source>
                <target>J'aime Symfony</target>
            </trans-unit>
            <trans-unit id="symfony.great">
                <source>symfony.great</source>
                <target>J'aime Symfony</target>
            </trans-unit>
        </body>
    </file>
</xliff>

Using Real or Keyword Messages

This example illustrates the two different philosophies when creating messages to be translated:

1
2
3
$translator->trans('Symfony is great');

$translator->trans('symfony.great');

In the first method, messages are written in the language of the default locale (English in this case). That message is then used as the "id" when creating translations.

In the second method, messages are actually "keywords" that convey the idea of the message. The keyword message is then used as the "id" for any translations. In this case, translations must be made for the default locale (i.e. to translate symfony.great to Symfony is great).

The second method is handy because the message key won't need to be changed in every translation file if you decide that the message should actually read "Symfony is really great" in the default locale.

The choice of which method to use is entirely up to you, but the "keyword" format is often recommended.

Additionally, the php and yaml file formats support nested ids to avoid repeating yourself if you use keywords instead of real text for your ids:

  • YAML
  • PHP 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
symfony:
    is:
        great: Symfony is great
        amazing: Symfony is amazing
    has:
        bundles: Symfony has bundles
user:
    login: Login

The multiple levels are flattened into single id/translation pairs by adding a dot (.) between every level, therefore the above examples are equivalent to the following:

  • YAML
  • PHP 
1
2
3
4
symfony.is.great: Symfony is great
symfony.is.amazing: Symfony is amazing
symfony.has.bundles: Symfony has bundles
user.login: Login

Forcing the Translator Locale

When translating a message, the Translator uses the specified locale or the fallback locale if necessary. You can also manually specify the locale to use for translation:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
$translator->trans(
    'Symfony is great',
    [],
    'messages',
    'fr_FR'
);

$translator->transChoice(
    '{0} There are no apples|{1} There is one apple|]1,Inf[ There are %count% apples',
    10,
    [],
    'messages',
    'fr_FR'
);

Note

Starting from Symfony 3.2, the third argument of transChoice() is optional when the only placeholder in use is %count%. In previous Symfony versions you needed to always define it:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
$translator->transChoice(
    '{0} There are no apples|{1} There is one apple|]1,Inf[ There are %count% apples',
    10,
    ['%count%' => 10],
    'messages',
    'fr_FR'
);

Retrieving the Message Catalogue

In case you want to use the same translation catalogue outside your application (e.g. use translation on the client side), it's possible to fetch raw translation messages. Specify the required locale:

1
2
3
4
5
$catalogue = $translator->getCatalogue('fr_FR');
$messages = $catalogue->all();
while ($catalogue = $catalogue->getFallbackCatalogue()) {
    $messages = array_replace_recursive($catalogue->all(), $messages);
}

The $messages variable will have the following structure:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
[
    'messages' => [
        'Hello world' => 'Bonjour tout le monde',
    ],
    'validators' => [
        'Value should not be empty' => 'Valeur ne doit pas être vide',
        'Value is too long' => 'Valeur est trop long',
    ],
];

Adding Notes to Translation Contents

Sometimes translators need additional context to better decide how to translate some content. This context can be provided with notes, which are a collection of comments used to store end user readable information. The only format that supports loading and dumping notes is XLIFF version 2.0.

If the XLIFF 2.0 document contains <notes> nodes, they are automatically loaded/dumped when using this component inside a Symfony application:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xliff xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:2.0" version="2.0"
    srcLang="fr-FR" trgLang="en-US">
    <file id="messages.en_US">
        <unit id="LCa0a2j" name="original-content">
            <notes>
                <note category="state">new</note>
                <note category="approved">true</note>
                <note category="section" priority="1">user login</note>
            </notes>
            <segment>
                <source>original-content</source>
                <target>translated-content</target>
            </segment>
        </unit>
    </file>
</xliff>

When using the standalone Translation component, call the setMetadata() method of the catalogue and pass the notes as arrays. This is for example the code needed to generate the previous XLIFF file:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
use Symfony\Component\Translation\Dumper\XliffFileDumper;
use Symfony\Component\Translation\MessageCatalogue;

$catalogue = new MessageCatalogue('en_US');
$catalogue->add([
    'original-content' => 'translated-content',
]);
$catalogue->setMetadata('original-content', ['notes' => [
    ['category' => 'state', 'content' => 'new'],
    ['category' => 'approved', 'content' => 'true'],
    ['category' => 'section', 'content' => 'user login', 'priority' => '1'],
]]);

$dumper = new XliffFileDumper();
$dumper->formatCatalogue($catalogue, 'messages', [
    'default_locale' => 'fr_FR',
    'xliff_version' => '2.0'
]);
This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
Code, deploy and relax

Code, deploy and relax

Measure & Improve Symfony Code Performance

Measure & Improve Symfony Code Performance

Check Code Performance in Dev, Test, Staging & Production

Check Code Performance in Dev, Test, Staging & Production