How to use translate helper in controllers in zend framework 2 - zend-framework2

Question

Is there any possible way to translate strings in controllers instead of view?
Right now, in my controllers, if I pass strings like :
public function indexAction() {
return array('message' => 'example message');
}
It will be translated in index.phtml
<?php print $this->translate($message);?>
It works well, but poeditor unable to find strings from controller files
Guess it would be cool if I can use something like :
public function indexAction() {
return array('message' => $view->translate('example message'));
}
in controllers
Thanks in advance for help

Answer 1

To use view helper in controller, you can use 'getServiceLocator'
$helper = $this->getServiceLocator()->get('ViewHelperManager')->get('helperName');
Either you can use php getText function ___('my custom message') and add "_" as sources keyword in poedit (in catalog properties) so poedit will filter strings from controller. eg:
array('message' => _('my custom message'));
And as per your code, you can use helper directly like this
$translate = $this->getServiceLocator()->get('ViewHelperManager')->get('translate');
array('message' => $translate('my custom message'));

Answer 2

You should not use the view's plugin manager to get to the translator helper. Grab the translator like I have explained here already.
A copy/paste of that post:
Translation is done via a Translator. The translator is an object and injected for example in a view helper, so if you call that view helper, it uses the translator to translate your strings. For this answer I assume you have configured the translator just the same as the skeleton application.
The best way is to use the factory to inject this as a dependency into your controller. The controller config:
'controllers' => array(
'factories' => array(
'my-controller' => function($sm) {
$translator = $sm->getServiceLocator()->get('translator');
$controller = new MyModule\Controller\FooController($translator);
}
)
)
And the controller itself:
namespace MyModule;
use Zend\Mvc\Controller\AbstractActionController;
use Zend\I18n\Translator\Translator;
class FooController extends AbstractActionController
{
protected $translator;
public function __construct(Translator $translator)
{
$this->translator = $translator;
}
}
An alternative is to pull the translator from the service manager in your action, but this is less flexible, less testable and harder to maintain:
public function fooAction()
{
$translator = $this->getServiceManager()->get('translator');
}
In both cases you can use $translator->translate('foo bar baz') to translate your strings.

Answer 3

I use for that purpose a simple plugin. Then in controller you can do $this->translate('example message');
class Translate extends AbstractPlugin {
private $translator;
public function __construct(PluginManager $pm) {
$this->translator = $pm->getServiceLocator()->get('Translator');
}
public function __invoke($message, $textDomain = 'default', $locale = null) {
return $this->translator->translate($message, $textDomain, $locale);
}
}