Multilingual databases using Codeigniter

Question

I have applied the method Additional Translation Approach in the database design.

With such structure of the tables, the code becomes more complex for per query.

My PHP code in models :

<?php
// SHOW ALL RECORDS
$this->db->select('m.id, m.title, m.content');

$table = 'blog';
if (MULTILINGUAL) {
    $this->db->from($table.' AS m');

    $this->db->select('t.title, t.content');
    $this->db->join($table.'_translation AS t', 'm.id = t.parent_id', 'left');
    $this->db->where('t.language_id', LANGUAGE);

    $query = $this->db->get();
} else $query = $this->db->get($table.' AS m');
?>

So I want to change it's code...

---

When MULTILINGUAL is true , and with per query has column fields is title , content ,...

$table = 'blog';
$this->db->select('id, title, content');
$query = $this->db->get($table);

it will automatically use the method JOIN with a table have suffix _translation (as my code above).

Otherwise, queries should be run as a normal query.

How can I do modified db class but don't affects core system of Codeigniter?

---

PHP code (using Codeigniter):

// Query 1:
$this->db->select('id, title, content');
$query = $this->db->get('blog');

// Query 2:
$this->db->select('id, title, content');
$this->db->where('id', 1);
$query = $this->db->get('blog');

Produces $this->db->last_query() :

if (MULTILINGUAL) {
    // Query 1:
    // SELECT t.title, t.content FROM blog AS m LEFT JOIN blog_translation AS t ON m.id = t.parent_id WHERE t.language_id = 1

    // Query 2:
    // SELECT t.title, t.content FROM blog AS m LEFT JOIN blog_translation AS t ON m.id = t.parent_id WHERE t.language_id = 1 WHERE m.id = 1
else {
    // Query 1:
    // SELECT title, content FROM blog

    // Query 2:
    // SELECT title, content FROM blog WHERE id = 1
}

I want it to be completely automatic.

I think that could change the db class to solve this problem, but direct intervention into the core system is unstable (within core update)...

I truly appreciate your help in resolving my problem!

Answer 1

This might help you to work around I don't know how you were using that config file but can achieve that functionality as

function your_function($multilingual = false) {
    $table = 'blog';
    if ($multilingual === true) {
        $this->db->select('t.title, t.content');
        $this->db->join($table . '_translation AS t', 'm.id = t.parent_id', 'left');
        $this->db->where('t.language_id', LANGUAGE);
        $query = $this->db->get($table . ' AS m')->result_array();
    } else {
        $this->db->select('m.id, m.title, m.content');
        $query = $this->db->get($table . ' AS m')->result_array();
    }
    return $query;
}

Answer 2

You could create a view and just call : $this->db->where('t.language_id', LANGUAGE); , but I don't know really if this is a better solution.