NAME
Apache::LangPrefCookie - implant a language-preference provided by a cookie into httpd's representation of the Accept-Language HTTP-header.
SYNOPSIS
<Location />
PerlInitHandler Apache::LangPrefCookie
</Location>
<Location /foo>
# optionally set a custom cookie-name, default is "prefer-language"
PerlSetVar LangPrefCookieName "foo-pref"
</Location>DESCRIPTION
This module looks for a cookie providing a language-code as its value. This preference is then implanted into httpd's representation of the Accept-Language header, just as if the client had asked for it as #1 choice. The original preferences are still present, albeit with lowered q-values. The cookie's name is configurable, as described in the examples. Setting/modifying/deleting such a cookie is to be handled separately, Apache::LangPrefCookie just consumes it.
After that, it's up to httpd's mod_negotiation to choose the best deliverable representation.
WHY?
I had demands to let users switch language once for a given site. Also, the availability and languages of translations offered, vary over places within this site.
In theory a user-agent should help its users to set a reasonable choice of language(s). In practice, the dialog is hidden in the 3rd level of some menu, maybe even misguiding the user in his selections. (See http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/www/lang-neg.html, especially the section Language subset selections for examples.)
There might also be scenarios, where one wants to let users set a different preference just for certain realms within one site.
I dislike solutions involving virtual paths, as they lengthen some, and generally increase the number of URIs for a given resource.
Admittedly, the itch scratched here might very well be quite specific for the Author. :-)
EXAMPLE COOKIE
prefer-language=x-klingon;expires=Saturday 31-Dec-05 24:00:00 GMT;path=/
Optionally, the default cookie name prefer-language can be overridden by setting the LangPrefCookieName variable:
PerlSetVar LangPrefCookieName "mypref"
mypref=x-klingon;expires=Saturday 31-Dec-05 24:00:00 GMT;path=/
BUGS
Not tested with Apache2
SEE ALSO
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/content-negotiation.html
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_negotiation.html
http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/www/lang-neg.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-webarch-20040705/#avoid-uri-aliases
AUTHOR
Hansjoerg Pehofer, <hansjoerg.pehofer@uibk.ac.at>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2005-2006 by Hansjoerg Pehofer
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.7 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.