LanguageLayer API client for PHP

Perform language detection in PHP using the LanguageLayer API.

Note: LanguageLayer is not being maintained anymore, and API calls started failing as of November 2020. This library is therefore archived.

Installation

This library is installable via Composer:

composer require benmorel/languagelayer

Requirements

This library requires PHP 7.1 or later.

Quickstart

You need a free API key from LanguageLayer to get started.

Just instantiate the LanguageLayer client, and start detecting:

use BenMorel\LanguageLayer\LanguageLayerClient;

$client = new LanguageLayerClient('YOUR API KEY');

$results = $client->detectLanguages('Some text. Try more than a few words for accurate detection.');

foreach ($results as $result) {
    if ($result->isReliableResult()) {
        echo $result->getLanguageCode();
    }
}

The detectLanguages() method returns an array of LanguageDetectionResult objects, that you can inspect to decide what to do with each detected language.

Using https

You can use the API over a secure connection, if you have a paid plan that supports it:

$client = new LanguageLayerClient('YOUR API KEY', true);

Detecting a single language

As a convenience, the detectLanguage() method helps you detect a single language from a text:

$languageCode = $client->detectLanguage('Some text. Try more than a few words for accurate detection.');

This method loops through the results to find a single reliable result. If it there is no reliable result, but the API returned a single result, it will also accept it, unless the second parameter, $forceReliable, is set to true:

$languageCode = $client->detectLanguage('...', true); // will not accept a single result, if not "reliable"

If no single, acceptable result is found, a LanguageDetectionException is thrown.

Error handling

Any kind of error—an HTTP error, an error returned by the API, or any other kind of error related to this library—throws a LanguageDetectionException.

Therefore you should wrap all your detectLanguage() and detectLanguages() calls in a try/catch block:

use BenMorel\LanguageLayer\LanguageDetectionException;

// …

try {
    $languageCode = $client->detectLanguage('...');
catch (LanguageDetectionException $exception) {
    // deal with it.
}

If the exception was caused by an HTTP error, you can inspect the underlying Guzzle exception by calling $exception->getPrevious() if needed.

If the exception was caused by an error returned by the LanguageLayer API itself, you can inspect it, in addition to the exception message, with $exception->getCode() and $exception->getType().

You can, for example, act upon specific API errors:

try {
    $languageCode = $client->detectLanguage('...');
} catch (LanguageDetectionException $exception) {
    switch ($exception->getType()) {
        case 'invalid_access_key':
        case 'usage_limit_reached':
            // report the error!
            break;

        case 'rate_limit_reached':
            // slow down!
        
        // ...
    }
}

Note: if the exception was not caused by an error returned by the API itself, getType() will return null.

See the LanguageLayer documentation for a list of error codes and types.