1. Introduction
2. The problem
3. The solution

Introduction ¶

We can easily have a multilingual site if we put a "lang" parameter that comes via GET. For example:

<?php 
echo CHtml::link('Games', array('/site/games', 'lang' => 'en')); 
echo CHtml::link('Juegos', array('/site/games', 'lang' => 'es')); 
echo CHtml::link('Services', array('/site/services', 'lang' => 'en')); 
echo CHtml::link('Servicios', array('/site/services', 'lang' => 'es')); 
?>

Then, in Controller.php, we need to put this piece of code:

public function beforeAction($action)
{
      if(isset($_GET['lang']))
      {
	      Yii::app()->setLanguage($_GET['lang']);
      }
      else
      {
	      Yii::app()->setLanguage('en');
      }
      
      return true;
}

Finally we can add the following rules:

'urlManager'=>array(
    'urlFormat'=>'path',
    'showScriptName'=>false,
    'rules'=>array(
	    '<lang:\w+>'=>'site/index',
	    '<lang:\w+>/<action>' => 'site/<action>',
     )
),

The problem ¶

This leads to URLs like these:

• http://www.oligalma.com/en/games (English)
• http://www.oligalma.com/es/games (Spanish)
• http://www.oligalma.com/en/services (English)
• http://www.oligalma.com/es/services (Spanish)

This is fine to have a multilingual site. But, we can go one step further. What if we want URLs like these:

• http://www.oligalma.com/en/games (English)
• http://www.oligalma.com/es/juegos (Spanish)
• http://www.oligalma.com/en/services (English)
• http://www.oligalma.com/es/servicios (Spanish)

That is, every URL has its particular path. It changes the whole URL, not just the two initial letters (en/es).

The solution ¶

'urlManager'=>array(
    'matchValue'=>true,
    'urlFormat'=>'path',
    'showScriptName'=>false,
    'rules'=>array(
	       '<lang:\w+>'=>'site/index',
           '<lang:es>/juegos'=> 'site/games',
           '<lang:en>/games'=> 'site/games',
           '<lang:es>/servicios'=> 'site/services',
           '<lang:en>/services'=> 'site/services',
	       '<lang:\w+>/<action>' => 'site/<action>',
     )
),

(Take note that we also added 'matchValue' => true to the urlManager array.)