Internationalization is a process that has to be taken into account especially if you develop PHP applications for an audience that is obviously international. What this means is building in the capability to seamlessly interface between different languages, currencies and date/time confusions so that every visitor’s needs are met.
One reason as to why everyone who is catering to an international audience should consider this to be important is because this can have big implications for both increased traffic and revenue as well.
Depending on the level of complexity involved, one can download and install a set of PEARs that can support your applications adequately to prevent the pitfalls that can come with applications that do keep this in mind.
But in order to be able to meet the user’s expectations, an internationalized application first tries to determine the location of the user by querying his browser, and in passing a combined “language and country” code, a set of ISO-standardized values determines the ‘default’ location and language.
Some internationalized applications allow users to choose their location by providing them with a list of countries to choose from, and based on the response that they provide, one can receive information that is specifically translated or formatted for their region.
From the developer’s point of view, internationalizing these application require code that are known as PEARs, and the most common one that is used to provide core internationalization for your PHP applications is the I18N PEAR.