How to manage language variables inside JavaScript?

Question

In my custom component I do a lot of JavaScript validation for each view. The validation throws various error messages and those messages are configured inside the language file en-GB.com_mycomp.ini and I write the JavaScript inclusion as below inside a PHP file.

in the view.html.php

require_once JPATH_COMPONENT.'/views/send/tmpl/validation.php';

validation.php

function doValidation(){
  // do some checking
  alert("<?php echo JText::_( 'VALIDATION_ERROR'); ?>");
}

Doing by this way the JavaScript code is rendered along with the PHP file.

What I was thinking is to use the standard $document->addScript(...) function so that the .js files are loaded as part of header. Since I got the inline PHP statements I'm not able to do it like that.

Note: I do not want to hard code the error messages inside the .js file because the component is language independent.

I need some direction regarding the best way of including JavaScript code that has language specific values.

Answer 1

Joomla has a certain method for this. First, in view.html.php add all strings, what needs to be translated with this:

JText::script('VALIDATION_ERROR');

This will add your string to javascript object, what you can use later.

And in javascript, use:

Joomla.JText._('VALIDATION_ERROR')

Which will give you matching translation in current language. This way you can keep JS and PHP in separate files.