Laravel Translator

Synchronize missing Laravel translation keys and report possibly unused keys in PHP and JSON language files.

Supports PHP 8.2+ and Laravel 11, 12, and 13.

Installation

composer require mavisland/laravel-translator
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=translator-config

The publish command creates config/translator.php. Edit this file to configure the languages and directories to scan.

Commands

php artisan translator:update
php artisan translator:unused

• translator:update: scans configured source directories for literal translation keys and adds missing keys to each configured language. Existing translation values are preserved. New values are empty by default; JSON keys are sorted alphabetically. Dotted group keys such as __('pagination.next') are stored in lang/<locale>/pagination.php, unless that exact key already exists in the locale's JSON file.
• translator:unused: reads existing <locale>.json and <locale>/**/*.php files and lists keys not found by the source scanner, sorted by locale and key. Read-only: no keys are deleted.

Caution: The unused report is a static-analysis aid, not proof a key can be deleted. Dynamic calls (for example, __('messages.' . $type)), keys used outside the configured scan directories, and translations referenced by other applications may be reported as unused. Review results manually.

Configuration

Generate config/translator.php with php artisan vendor:publish --tag=translator-config, then edit the generated file:

return [
    'languages' => ['tr', 'en'],
    'default_language' => 'tr',
    'use_keys_as_default_value' => false,
    'directories' => [app_path(), resource_path('views')],
    'output' => lang_path(),
    'extensions' => ['php'],
    'functions' => ['lang', '__'],
    'container' => [
        'config_loader' => \\Translator\\Framework\\LaravelConfigLoader::class,
        'translation_repository' => \\Translator\\Infra\\LaravelTranslationRepository::class,
    ],
];

The scanner recognizes literal __('Hello'), lang('Hello'), and equivalent configured function calls. Blade @lang('Hello') is also supported by the template scanner. Dynamic expressions cannot be fully resolved by static scanning.

The output location is configured through output; use lang_path() for modern Laravel installations. The default configuration uses Turkish and English; change languages and default_language as needed.

Example

Source:

__('Hello World');
__('pagination.next');

After php artisan translator:update, new keys have empty values:

{
    "Hello World": ""
}

lang/tr/pagination.php:

<?php

return [
    'next' => '',
];

Translations already present in the files are not overwritten. Running the command again should not change unchanged JSON content.

Development checks

composer install
composer run tests

This runs PHP_CodeSniffer, PHPStan, and PHPUnit. Run the checks before publishing a release.

Release

After the tests pass, create and push a version tag (for example v1.0.0) and submit the public GitHub repository URL to Packagist. Packagist publication is a separate step from pushing commits to GitHub.

Credits

Originally created by Thiago Cordeiro dos Santos. This maintained fork is developed by Tanju Yildiz. The original MIT copyright notice is retained in LICENSE alongside the current maintainer’s copyright notice, as required by its terms.