How do I get the browser user’s language?

Question

I have a website in 3 languages, EN, EN and ES.

But on some distinct machines when accessing the site by the browser is directing to page on English. This happens because of the code below which I developed to recover the browser user language.

App::before(function($request){
    $l = substr($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'], 0, 2);
    $l = ($l == 'pt') ? null : $l;
    if(!is_null($l)){
        $l = in_array($l, Config::get('app.languages')) ? $l : 'en';
    }
});

It turns out, obviously, that’s not the best way. Some users for not knowing how to install a browser, such as Chrome, end up installing it in English. Hence the code redirects the user to the site in English.

And it’s interfering with the site’s analytics. I see that Brazilian users are first accessing the site in English and a percentage of these click to enter in Portuguese. The problem is that others to see that it is in English reject the site, without at least looking for the option of changing language.

Anyway, there is some way in PHP, Laravel to search the user language in a more global way ?

Type per IP ?

Geolocation ?

Geoip ?

Answer 1

Translation of Response to How to get the page Visitors Country with PHP?

---

You can use an external API such as geoplugin.net

$xml = simplexml_load_file("http://www.geoplugin.net/xml.gp?ip=76.109.14.196");
echo $xml->geoplugin_countryName ;

Departure from the country:

United States

Full XML response:

<geoPlugin>
    <geoplugin_request>76.109.14.196</geoplugin_request>
    <geoplugin_status>200</geoplugin_status>
    <geoplugin_city>West Palm Beach</geoplugin_city>
    <geoplugin_region>FL</geoplugin_region>
    <geoplugin_areaCode>561</geoplugin_areaCode>
    <geoplugin_dmaCode>548</geoplugin_dmaCode>
    <geoplugin_countryCode>US</geoplugin_countryCode>
    <geoplugin_countryName>United States</geoplugin_countryName>
    <geoplugin_continentCode>NA</geoplugin_continentCode>
    <geoplugin_latitude>26.761600494385</geoplugin_latitude>
    <geoplugin_longitude>-80.091598510742</geoplugin_longitude>
    <geoplugin_regionCode>FL</geoplugin_regionCode>
    <geoplugin_regionName>Florida</geoplugin_regionName>
    <geoplugin_currencyCode>USD</geoplugin_currencyCode>
    <geoplugin_currencySymbol>&#36;</geoplugin_currencySymbol>
    <geoplugin_currencyConverter>1</geoplugin_currencyConverter>
</geoPlugin>

Simple function to catch the IP:

function getIP() {
    if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'])) {
        $ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
    } elseif (! empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'])) 
    {
        $ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
    } else {
        $ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
    }
    return $ip;
}

---

Some considerations you have to take is that as a request to an external API, latency time can be relatively large.

It still has other solutions such as PHP Geoip extension.

Answer 2

Your question does not make much sense to me the way you put it. I understand the problem you have at hand but you have already thought that today the Internet is mobility?

What happens if your user is in another country... how do you want to respond to this by geolocation? by ip?

I don’t think!

For me the right way to get the language is always by the browser. example:

/**
 * locale <i>Tag</i> do browser
 * @return string
 */
 private function _parse_client_language() {

        $http_accept = getenv('HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE');

        if (isset($http_accept) && strlen($http_accept) > 1) {
            # Split 
            $x = explode(",", $http_accept);
            foreach ($x as $val) {
                if (preg_match("/(.*);q=([0-1]{0,1}.d{0,4})/i", $val, $matches))
                    $lang[$matches[1]] = (float) $matches[2];
                else
                    $lang[$val] = 1.0;
            }

            #default language (highest q-value)
            $qval = 0.0;
            foreach ($lang as $key => $value) {
                if ($value > $qval) {
                    $qval = (float) $value;
                    return $key;
                }
            }
        }
        return self::$tag_default;
    }

I follow the norm a lot LOCALE which allows us, in a standardised way, to have an easy and proven solution.

Then I recommend reading my question here in the OS at:

MVC and dynamic language change

That so far I have not had any answer but gives an idea of the problem we face in any project. Be with LARAVEL or other framework.