Detect prefered language

Question

I am using this script to detect the most prefered language by the user.

function Get_Client_Prefered_Language ($getSortedList = false, $acceptedLanguages = false)
{
 if (empty($acceptedLanguages))
 $acceptedLanguages = $_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"];
 preg_match_all('/([a-z]{1,8}(-[a-z]{1,8})*)\s*(;\s*q\s*=\s*(1|0\.[0-9]+))?/i', $acceptedLanguages, $lang_parse);
 $langs = $lang_parse[1];
 $ranks = $lang_parse[4];
 // (create an associative array 'language' => 'preference')
 $lang2pref = array();
 for($i=0; $i<count($langs); $i++)
 $lang2pref[$langs[$i]] = (float) (!empty($ranks[$i]) ? $ranks[$i] : 1);
 // (comparison function for uksort)
 $cmpLangs = function ($a, $b) use ($lang2pref) {
 if ($lang2pref[$a] > $lang2pref[$b])
 return -1;
 elseif ($lang2pref[$a] < $lang2pref[$b])
 return 1;
 elseif (strlen($a) > strlen($b))
 return -1;
 elseif (strlen($a) < strlen($b))
 return 1;
 else
 return 0;
 };
 // sort the languages by prefered language and by the most specific region
 uksort($lang2pref, $cmpLangs);
 if ($getSortedList)
 return $lang2pref;
 // return the first value's key
 reset($lang2pref);
 return key($lang2pref);
}

Example:

print_r(Get_Client_Prefered_Language(true, 'en,en-US,en-AU;q=0.8,fr;q=0.6,en-GB;q=0.4'));

Output:

Array
 (
 [en-US] => 1
 [en] => 1
 [en-AU] => 0.8
 [fr] => 0.6
 [en-GB] => 0.4
 )

Is this reliable? How about performance, this script will get called many times per seconds.

Answer 1

The following is imho easier to read and should give you best performance.

<?php
/**
 * Get a sorted list of client accepted languages.
 *
 * @staticvar array $examined
 * Used to cache the sorted list for <var>$accept_languages</var> strings.
 * @param boolean $list [optional]
 * Whether to get a sorted list or the language with the highest preference, defaults to <code>FALSE</code> and
 * the language with the highest preference will be returned.
 * @param string $accept_languages [optional]
 * The client submitted accept languages string in the format defined in RFC 2616.
 * @param string $default [optional]
 * The default ISO 639-1 alpha-2 language code to use if no other language could be determined, defaults to
 * <code>"en"</code>.
 * @return array|string
 * Associative array where the key is the language code or locale and the value the preference if <var>$list</var>
 * is set to <code>TRUE</code>, otherwise the ISO 639-1 alpha-2 code or locale of the language with the highest
 * preference.
 */
function get_client_preferred_language($list = false, $accept_languages = null, $default = "en") {
 static $examined = array();
 // Either use the supplied string or use the string from server input, this construct ensures highest performance
 // because a positive check is performed.
 $accept_languages || ($accept_languages = filter_input(INPUT_SERVER, "HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE", FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING, FILTER_FLAG_STRIP_LOW | FILTER_FLAG_STRIP_HIGH));
 // Only examine this string if we haven't done so in the past.
 if (empty($examined[$accept_languages])) {
 // Prepare default fallback in our cache for this string.
 $examined[$accept_languages] = array($default => 1.0);
 // Only continue if we have a string to examine.
 if ($accept_languages) {
 // Prepare array for collecting the preferred languages.
 $languages = array();
 // Extract all languages from the accept languages string, the format is defined in RFC 2616.
 preg_match_all("/([a-z]+(?:-[a-z]+)?)\s*(?:;\s*q\s*=\s*(1|0?\.[0-9]+))?/i", $accept_languages, $matches);
 // Only go through all extracted languages if we have any.
 if (!empty($matches[1])) {
 foreach ($matches[1] as $delta => $code) {
 // Empty means highest preference.
 $languages[$code] = empty($matches[2][$delta]) ? 1.0 : (float) $matches[2][$delta];
 }
 // Sort the accepted languages by preference, if sorting fails use default.
 if (arsort($languages, SORT_NUMERIC) === true) {
 $examined[$accept_languages] = $languages;
 }
 }
 }
 }
 return $list ? $examined[$accept_languages] : array_values($examined[$accept_languages])[0];
}
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Test
function get_client_preferred_language_test() {
 assert(array(
 "en-US" => 1.0,
 "en" => 1.0,
 "en-AU" => 0.8,
 "fr" => 0.6,
 "en-GB" => 0.4,
 ) === get_client_preferred_language(true, "en,en-US,en-AU;q=0.8,fr;q=0.6,en-GB;q=0.4"));
}
get_client_preferred_language_test();