PoEdit and PHP annotations

Question

I'm looking for a way to make PoEdit understand PHP annotations. Here's a sample of code I want PoEdit to pick up and put into catalog:

class MyController extends Controller {

    /**
     * @Title "Home"
     */
    public function index() {
        ...
    }

}

The interesting part is @Title annotation. It is accessed in front controller and assigned to master view, effectively ending up inside <title>...</title> tag.

Now I need that string translated, but PoEdit seems to only understand _() expressions, and adding @Title to keywords does not work. This is probably because annotations in PHP are in comment block.

Is there any way to force PoEdit to understand annotations?

Answer 1

Short answer, you can't.

POEdit uses xgettext to scan your files therefore using specific syntax, ignoring commented lines.

For example, if your keywords are _ the following examples will be parsed like:

_('test'); -> string 'test'

_("test"); -> string 'test'

_('test' -> string 'test'

_ 'test -> no catch

_('test -> no catch

_(test) -> no catch

_($test) -> no catch

//_('test'); -> no catch

/*_('test');*/ -> no catch

You can execute xgettext using other parameters but I'm not sure if you will be able to achieve your goal.

---

One easy fix (not standard ofc) is to add other keyword like placeholder and make a php function like

function placeholder($string){}

and use it so POEdit can parse it

class MyController extends Controller {

    /**
     * @Title "Home"
     */
    public function index() {
      placeholder('Home');  
      ...
    }

}

At your frontend parser just use the simple _($value) and you will have your title translated.

Dunno how is your code but will assume its something similar to this.

Assuming that $tag = 'title' and $value = 'Home'

echo '<'.$tag.'>'._($value).'</'.$tag.'>';