Development:Language API
From MoodleDocs
This is a draft of Language API proposal that should define data structures and API to manipulate Moodle lang files.
From the conceptual point of view, the Language API consists of three hierarchical layers. These layers are abstracted as three object classes - see the attached UML diagram.
- language_pack
- This represents the whole pack with its own repository, maintainer etc. At the moment, it is implemented as a directory - e.g. $CFG->dirroot/lang/en_utf8 or $CFG->dataroot/lang/cs_utf8 etc. Other implementations should be possible in the future.
- public $id - lang pack code, e.g. 'en_utf8'
- public $name - human readable pack name, e.g. 'English with my customizations'
- public $location - where the lang pack is saved. Currently this will be the full path to the root directory. Might be some general URI format in the future, e.g. filesystem://path/to/the/directory or dbstorage://database.server/user/password or git://git.repository/lang etc.
- public load_modules() - initializes all modules included in the language pack
- language_module
- represents a single module of a given pack, defines the sub-context of translated texts. At the moment, it is implemented as a file - e.g. moodle.php or qtype_multichoice.php. Other implementations should be possible in the future.
- language_string
- represents a single unit of text (word, sentence or whole page) that can be translated and then used in the UI. At the moment, this is either one $string[] definition or a help file content.
