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 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 (where jp is any kind of japaness language encoding). 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
