php - retrieve language phrases from MySQL

Question

I'm building a multilingual site, and would like to store the language phrases in database.

This is my language table:

CREATE TABLE `language` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `key` varchar(100) DEFAULT NULL,
  `value` varchar(150) DEFAULT NULL,
  `type` varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
  `abr` varchar(4) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

key field stores the phrase key, while the value is the actual pharase

The function below is part of Language class:

public static function getPhrases()
{   
    $sql  = "SELECT * FROM language ORDER BY type";
    $data = $db->fetch($sql);

    $vals = array();
    foreach($data as $k => $row) 
    {
        $vals[] = $row->key;
    }

    return $vals;
}

I would like to be able to call language phrase like:

Language::HELLO , which would print "Hello"

in the above HELLO is the key, while Hello is the phrase needs to be printed.

Answer 1

class Language {

    private $phrases;

    public function __construct($phrases = array()){
        $this->phrases = $phrases;
    }


    /**
    * Dynamically create getters for phrases
    * @param $name string
    */
    public function __get($name) {
        if (array_key_exists($name, $this->phrases)) {
            return $this->phrases[key];
        }
    }

    /**
    * Load language from database
    */
    public static function getLangauge(){   
        $sql  = "SELECT * FROM language ORDER BY type";
        $data = $db->fetch($sql);

        $vals = array();
        foreach($data as $k => $row) 
        {
            $vals[] = $row->key;
        }

        return new self($vals);
    }

}

$foolang = new Language(array('foo' => 'bar'));
echo $foolang->foo;
// bar