How to export localization for default language in Yii2 to files?

Question

Yii

Straight to the point.

// app\config\web.php
return [
  // ...
  'sourceLanguage' => 'en-EN',
  'language' => 'en-EN',
  'i18n' => [
    'translations' => [
            'welcome' => [
                'class'   => 'yii\i18n\PhpMessageSource',
                'fileMap' => [
                    'welcome' => 'welcome.php'
                ],
            ],
        ],
  ]
  // ...
];

// app\messages\en-EN\welcome.php
return [
  'h1' => 'Hello!'
];

// app\messages\ru-RU\welcome.php
return [
  'h1' => 'Привет!'
];

<?php Yii::$app->language = 'en-EN' ?>

<!-- h1-->
<h1><?= Yii::t('welcome', 'h1') ?></h1>

<?php Yii::$app->language = 'ru-RU' ?>

<!-- Привет! -->
<h1><?= Yii::t('welcome', 'h1') ?></h1>

I expected to see Hello! instead of h1 .
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

In the built-in translation mechanism in Yii - if the application language matches the default language - no translation is performed. This behavior is set by default (which is why your code doesn't work) so that when the user gets to the default language version of the site, your application doesn't have to do the extra work of reading the translation files. You can disable this behavior by enabling forced translation, like so:

return [
  // ...
  'sourceLanguage' => 'en-EN',
  'language' => 'en-EN',
  'i18n' => [
    'translations' => [
            'welcome' => [
                'class'   => 'yii\i18n\PhpMessageSource',
                'forceTranslation' => true,
                'fileMap' => [
                    'welcome' => 'welcome.php'
                ],
            ],
        ],
  ]
  // ...
];

But in this case, you should understand that every time you access the site in the default language, Yii will shovel translation files....