PHP use gettext to translate an array

Question

I have a web page in PHP and I'm translating with gettext _("STRING_TO_TRANSLATE").

I have in my DB one table with all user profiles for my website. I put them in a selection box to choose one.

Now I want to translate the profile names.

Is there ANY way to translate (USING GETTEXT) the profile names coming from database?

Code example of my selection box:

while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result_user_type))
{
    echo "<option $selected value=\"".$row['id']."\">".$row['designation']." </option>";
}   

Answer 1

Wouldnt you just do...

while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result_user_type))
{
   echo "<option $selected value=\"".$row['id']."\">"._($row['designation'])." </option>";
}   

Im not sure though, never used gettext or anything but if its just a function that takes an argument and returns a translated string, then this should do it.

Answer 2

You just can't translate PHP variables! The gettext doesn't execute PHP, it just scans your code to get plain strings.

You should look this for example http://ottopress.com/2012/internationalization-youre-probably-doing-it-wrong/

Cheers

Answer 3

To translate my user_type array I created a class that prints the result from the DB to a file translate.php:

public function createArrayType()
{
    $filePHP   = fopen("translate.php", "a");
    $initial = true;

    if (!is_resource($filePHP))
        return false;

    $sql_activity     = "SELECT id, name FROM user_type";
    $result_activity  = mysqli_query( $this->mysqli , $sql_activity  );

    fwrite($filePHP, "\n  \$user_types = array(");
    while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result_activity))
    {
        if(!$initial)
        fwrite($filePHP, ",");

        fwrite($filePHP, "'".$row['id']."' => _('".$row['name']."')" );

        $initial = false;
    }
    fwrite($filePHP, "); \n");
    fclose($filePHP);
}

Then just use poEdit to translate and use $user_types array:

while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result_user_type))
{
   echo "<option $selected value=\"".$row['id']."\">".$user_types[$row['id']]." </option>";
}  

I don't know if is it the best option but that options solves my problem.