Using the PHP HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE server variable

I created a PHP script that checks the HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE and loads the website using the appropriate language from the 1st two characters:

          $http_lang = substr($_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"],0,2);
      switch ($http_lang) {
        case 'en':
          $SESSION->conf['language'] = 'english';
          break;
        case 'es':
          $SESSION->conf['language'] = 'spanish';
          break;
        default:
          $SESSION->conf['language'] = $PREFS->conf['languages'][$SESSION->conf['language_id']];
      }

If I change the language to Spanish in Firefox the website loads in Spanish fine. However I have had several reports that people in Colombia see the website in english.

Details: "es-co" LCID = 9226 Spanish(Colombia)

Anyone have any ideas as to why this is happening? I thought this was the best way to check what language users support.

A more contemporary method would be to use http_negotiate_language():

 $map = array("en" => "english", "es" => "spanish");
 $conf_language= $map[ http_negotiate_language(array_keys($map)) ];

If you don't have the http extension installed (and not the intl one as well), there is yet another workaround in the comments (user-note #86787 (Nov 2008; by Anonymous)):

<?php 
/* 
  determine which language out of an available set the user prefers most 

  $available_languages        array with language-tag-strings (must be lowercase) that are available 
  $http_accept_language    a HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE string (read from $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'] if left out) 
*/ 
function prefered_language ($available_languages,$http_accept_language="auto") { 
    // if $http_accept_language was left out, read it from the HTTP-Header 
    if ($http_accept_language == "auto") $http_accept_language = isset($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']) ? $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'] : ''; 

    // standard  for HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE is defined under 
    // http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.4 
    // pattern to find is therefore something like this: 
    //    1#( language-range [ ";" "q" "=" qvalue ] ) 
    // where: 
    //    language-range  = ( ( 1*8ALPHA *( "-" 1*8ALPHA ) ) | "*" ) 
    //    qvalue         = ( "0" [ "." 0*3DIGIT ] ) 
    //            | ( "1" [ "." 0*3("0") ] ) 
    preg_match_all("/([[:alpha:]]{1,8})(-([[:alpha:]|-]{1,8}))?" . 
                   "(\s*;\s*q\s*=\s*(1\.0{0,3}|0\.\d{0,3}))?\s*(,|$)/i", 
                   $http_accept_language, $hits, PREG_SET_ORDER); 

    // default language (in case of no hits) is the first in the array 
    $bestlang = $available_languages[0]; 
    $bestqval = 0; 

    foreach ($hits as $arr) { 
        // read data from the array of this hit 
        $langprefix = strtolower ($arr[1]); 
        if (!empty($arr[3])) { 
            $langrange = strtolower ($arr[3]); 
            $language = $langprefix . "-" . $langrange; 
        } 
        else $language = $langprefix; 
        $qvalue = 1.0; 
        if (!empty($arr[5])) $qvalue = floatval($arr[5]); 

        // find q-maximal language  
        if (in_array($language,$available_languages) && ($qvalue > $bestqval)) { 
            $bestlang = $language; 
            $bestqval = $qvalue; 
        } 
        // if no direct hit, try the prefix only but decrease q-value by 10% (as http_negotiate_language does) 
        else if (in_array($langprefix,$available_languages) && (($qvalue*0.9) > $bestqval)) { 
            $bestlang = $langprefix; 
            $bestqval = $qvalue*0.9; 
        } 
    } 
    return $bestlang; 
} 
?>

Do you know if this is happening for all visitors to your site from Colombia? Users are usually free to alter the language settings of their browsers — or to have them altered for them by whoever is in charge of the computer. As zerkms recommends, try logging IP addresses and their headers.

If you have the intl extension installed you can use Locale::lookup and Locale::acceptFromHttp to get a best-fit choice of language from the users browser settings and a list of what translations you have available.

Locale::acceptFromHttp($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']); # e.g. "en_US"