i18n URIs with CI Routing or mod_rewrite - .htaccess

Question

I'm trying to clean up my URIs on a multi-language CI site by changing the segment containing the language name to just the two-character language code.
Currently, my URIs look like this:
http://example.com // Home (English)
http://example.com/english/home // Home (English)
http://example.com/home // 404 (should go to english/home)
http://example.com/sv // 404 (should go to swedish/home)
http://example.com/swedish/home // Home (Swedish)
http://example.com/sv/home // 404 (should go to swedish/home)
I have experimented both with application/config/routes.php and .htaccess, but I feel I'm not making much progress. Which should I be using? How can I achieve my desired results?
As it stands, my files look like this:
// .htaccess
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /example/index.php/$1 [L]
// application/config/routes.php (minus docs)
<?php
if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
$route['default_controller'] = "pages/view/home";
$route['([a-z]+)/([a-z]+)'] = "pages/view/$2";
?>
// application/controllers/page
<?php
class Pages extends CI_Controller {
public function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
$this->language = $this->uri->segment(1);
}
public function view ($page = 'home') {
if (!file_exists('application/views/pages/'.$page.'.php'))
show_404();
$data['title'] = $page;
$this->lang->load('general',$this->language);
$this->load->view('templates/header', $data);
$this->load->view('pages/'.$page, $data);
$this->load->view('templates/footer', $data);
}
}
?>

Answer 1

Try this in routes.php:
$route['default_controller'] = "pages/view/home";
$route['(en|sv)'] = 'pages/view/home';
$route['(en|sv)/([a-z]+)'] = 'pages/view/$2';
Controller constructor:
function __construct(){
parent::__construct();
$this->lang_array = array('en' => 'english', 'sv' => 'swedish');
$this->current_lang = $this->uri->segment(1, 'en');
}
View function:
public function view ($page = 'home') {
$lang_folder = $this->lang_array[$this->current_lang];
// $lang_folder will be 'english' by default
// other stuff
$this->lang->load('general', $lang_folder);
}

Answer 2

Above your current rules, add these:
# You already had this one
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^home(.*)$ /english/home$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^sv(/home)?(.*)$ /swedish/home$1 [L]
Then the ones you already have:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /kappahl-hilys/index.php/$1 [L]

Answer 3

You can also:
In a first Hook(pre_system) file, detect the language in URI:
<?php
class Lang_uri {
public function run() {
$languages = array('fr', 'en');
//try to find language in $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']
foreach($languages as $lang)
{
if(strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/'.$lang)===0)
{
//Store language founded
define('URI_LANG', $lang);
//Delete it, codeigniter will don't know is exists !
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = substr_replace($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '', strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/'.$lang)+1, strlen($lang)+1);
break;
}
}
if(!defined('URI_LANG'))
define('URI_LANG', 'fr');
}
}
Now in an another hook file(pre_controller) set language config item
class Set_language {
public function set() {
global $CFG;
$CFG->set_item('language', str_replace(array('en', 'fr'), array('english', 'french'), URI_LANG));
}
}
That's all.
http://site.com/fr/home and http://site.com/home will work as same..
For more infos about CI Hook: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/hooks.html
Sorry for my poor english..