public inbox for [email protected]help / color / mirror / Atom feed
multi-language web application: is it possible? 3+ messages / 3 participants [nested] [flat]
* multi-language web application: is it possible? @ 2007-05-04 14:20 Elim Qiu <[email protected]> 0 siblings, 2 replies; 3+ messages in thread From: Elim Qiu @ 2007-05-04 14:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: pgsql-www; [email protected] I have many tables like the table Person:below, in mysql database. person_id, first_name,last_name, mi, gb_first_name, gb_last_name, b5_first_name, b5_last_name, gender, dob where different columns storing strings in different encodings. At anytime, a web user can switch the language and the application will get the values in the right columns to generate web pages. The purpose of Multi-language tables is to make multilanguage dynamic content management easier for web applications. For example, to add a person record, the user enter the English name, then switch the session language to gb2312, enter the Chinese name in gb2312, and then switch the session language to big5, enter the name in big5. And then commit the data into the database. The whole thing sounds complicated but can be treated as a pattern and let a framework to take care of those and the code can be as clean as a single language app. I actually have the framework that works well for me with mysql database. I'm trying to port the app to pgsql database but got trouble doing so. I can read and set a row with multiple languages (in some paricular cases), but cannot do queries like (gb_first_name = 'A' and b5_first_name = 'B') with A a gb2312 string, B a big5 string. The tables are of unicode encoded, and the dbclient encoding is set to GBK. The application's char set are selectable by user among iso-8859-1,gb2312 and big5. I didn't do anything about language encoding in mysql database, it just worked for me. At least with english, gb2312 and big5 altogether in a table like table Person above. I noticed that (english, gb2312, big5, Jp) cannot work together even in mysql database. My approach seems fine with most western languages So after all such experimental work, I still don't know how to make a real multi language web app such that the languages are switchable within the same session. Any suggestions? Any web application known to be able to solve the problem? Thanks ^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 3+ messages in thread
* Re: multi-language web application: is it possible? @ 2007-05-04 14:59 Tino Wildenhain <[email protected]> parent: Elim Qiu <[email protected]> 1 sibling, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread From: Tino Wildenhain @ 2007-05-04 14:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Elim Qiu <[email protected]>; [email protected] Elim Qiu schrieb: > I have many tables like the table Person:below, in mysql database. > > person_id, first_name,last_name, mi, gb_first_name, gb_last_name, > b5_first_name, b5_last_name, gender, dob > > where different columns storing strings in different encodings. At > anytime, a web user can switch the language and the application will get > the values in the right columns to generate web pages. The purpose of > Multi-language tables is to make multilanguage dynamic content > management easier for web applications. For example, to add a person > record, the user enter the English name, then switch the session > language to gb2312, enter the Chinese name in gb2312, and then switch > the session language to big5, enter the name in big5. And then commit > the data into the database. The whole thing sounds complicated but can > be treated as a pattern and let a framework to take care of those and > the code can be as clean as a single language app. I actually have the > framework that works well for me with mysql database. It would be easier to normalize the tables and have a referral. Also person names arent usually localized - at least this would be very uncommon. If you want you can transcribe them when you output it (e.g. replace umlauts with their dual char ascii representation) > I'm trying to port the app to pgsql database but got trouble doing so. I > can read and set a row with multiple languages (in some paricular > cases), but cannot do queries like (gb_first_name = 'A' and > b5_first_name = 'B') with A a gb2312 string, B a big5 string. The tables > are of unicode encoded, and the dbclient encoding is set to GBK. The > application's char set are selectable by user among iso-8859-1,gb2312 > and big5. the language and their encoding are more or less orthogonal. So if you settle for one common encoding which covers all the language you want to use, then its easy to have all the language words side by side. General unicode (in its utf-8 representation) is used in postgres for such a general case. > I didn't do anything about language encoding in mysql database, it just > worked for me. At least with english, gb2312 and big5 altogether in a > table like table Person above. I noticed that (english, gb2312, big5, > Jp) cannot work together even in mysql database. My approach seems fine > with most western languages Well it might work but it might not work as expected. Beside the encoding, you also have a collating order to obey. This is very depending on the language (and the portion of the charset it uses) so this would not even work in mySQL or other databases w/o any specification. In PG, assuming you would have a table with the texts, it would carry the language_id too and you could provide a functional index which would take care of the sorting of the individual language based on the language id. > So after all such experimental work, I still don't know how to make a > real multi language web app such that the languages are switchable > within the same session. I'd highly recommend restructuring the tables to be more flexible and to have a faster and cleaner approach. Joins do not hurt so much in postgres so use them to your advantage. Regards Tino ^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 3+ messages in thread
* Re: multi-language web application: is it possible? @ 2007-05-04 17:12 Adrian Maier <[email protected]> parent: Elim Qiu <[email protected]> 1 sibling, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread From: Adrian Maier @ 2007-05-04 17:12 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Elim Qiu <[email protected]>; +Cc: pgsql-www On 5/4/07, Elim Qiu <[email protected]> wrote: > > I have many tables like the table Person:below, in mysql database. > > person_id, first_name,last_name, mi, gb_first_name, gb_last_name, > b5_first_name, b5_last_name, gender, dob > > where different columns storing strings in different encodings. At anytime, > a web user can switch the language and the application will get the values > in the right columns to generate web pages. The purpose of Multi-language > tables is to make multilanguage dynamic content management easier for web > applications. For example, to add a person record, the user enter the > English name, then switch the session language to gb2312, enter the Chinese > name in gb2312, and then switch the session language to big5, enter the name > in big5. And then commit the data into the database. The whole thing sounds > complicated but can be treated as a pattern and let a framework to take care > of those and the code can be as clean as a single language app. I actually > have the framework that works well for me with mysql database. > > I'm trying to port the app to pgsql database but got trouble doing so. I can > read and set a row with multiple languages (in some paricular cases), but > cannot do queries like (gb_first_name = 'A' and b5_first_name = 'B') with A > a gb2312 string, B a big5 string. The tables are of unicode encoded, and the > dbclient encoding is set to GBK. The application's char set are selectable > by user among iso-8859-1,gb2312 and big5. > > I didn't do anything about language encoding in mysql database, it just > worked for me. At least with english, gb2312 and big5 altogether in a table > like table Person above. I noticed that (english, gb2312, big5, Jp) cannot > work together even in mysql database. My approach seems fine with most > western languages > > So after all such experimental work, I still don't know how to make a real > multi language web app such that the languages are switchable within the > same session. > > Any suggestions? Any web application known to be able to solve the problem? > Thanks Elim, the pgsql-www mailing list is dedicated to discussions regarding the PostgreSQL website , and not to discussions about developing web applications. I've noticed that you've sent the email to pgsql-general as well . pgsql-general is probably a better place for asking your question . Best wishes, Adrian Maier ^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 3+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2007-05-04 17:12 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 3+ messages (download: mbox mbox.gz follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2007-05-04 14:20 multi-language web application: is it possible? Elim Qiu <[email protected]> 2007-05-04 14:59 ` Tino Wildenhain <[email protected]> 2007-05-04 17:12 ` Adrian Maier <[email protected]>
This inbox is served by agora; see mirroring instructions for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox