redirect using HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE not working

General PHP Help
#1

Hi

I have this code that is supposed to redirect user according to his browser language but it doesn’t work.

[php]<?php
$lang = $_SERVER[‘HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE’];
switch($lang) {
case “de”:
case “ru”:
case “cn”:
case “fr”:
header(“Location: http://www.example.co.za/$lang/index.html”);
break;
default:
header(“Location: http://www.example.co.za/en/index.html”);
break;
}[/php]

When I use a Russian Firefox, I still get redirected to the “default” URL and not to the russian version as I should be. Furthermore, I did a test to echo out $_SERVER[‘HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE’]; and this is what was returned:

ru,en-us;q=0.7,en;q=0.3

Thanks in advance for any help.

#2

Your switch statement is looking for a string with the two letter country code in it. But you are setting $lang to the entire return of the HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE header.

This: en-US,en;q=0.8
and
This: “en”

are not the same, your switch will always land in the default.

#3

THanks for the reply. So far the forum has been excellent in pointing out what is wrong. Would someone be kind enough to present a solution to this?

#4

I’ll post one way of doing it, there is always different ways, and in no way is mine probably the best, but here is a possible solution that I think would work for you.

This works by taking the HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE response, breaking it apart by the comma and switching on the first two characters.

[php]<?php
$lang = $_SERVER[‘HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE’];
$lang_parts = explode(",", $lang);

switch(substr($lang_parts[0], 0,2)) {
case “de”:
case “ru”:
case “cn”:
case “fr”:
header(“Location: http://www.example.co.za/$lang_parts[0]/index.html”);
break;
default:
header(“Location: http://www.example.co.za/en/index.html”);
break;
}[/php]

#5

Thanks for that, I kind of understand this. the only thing that confuses me is this part

$lang_parts[0]

Why is there a [0] there? I am assuming that the “0,2” means “take first two characters right?”

#6
#7

$lang_parts is an array, the result of split $_SERVER[‘HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGES’];

Example:
$_SERVER[‘HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGES’] = “en-US,en;q=0.8”;
$lang_parts = Array(‘en-Us’,‘en;q=0.8’);
$lang_parts[0] = ‘en-Us’;
substr($lang_parts[0],0,2) = ‘en’;

#8

Great thanks!

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