Array format generating an exception: "ErrorException: htmlspecialchars() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given ..."

[christiansyl]

Hi all.

I am using Laravel 5.3 with php 7.x and my original lang files are all defined using the dot notation, e.g. 'header.menu.experts.find' => 'Find Experts', after exporting the updated translation from the DB (using php artisan translations:export) the files are now using the array format:

return array (
  'header' => 
  array (...

But this is causing my app to crash, i.e. it seems that the array format cannot be read by my application. I get the following exception: ErrorException: htmlspecialchars() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in ...

There is probably a configuration I can set somewhere to let Laravel read that notation for the array, instead of the []?

It's probably something that has been adressed before but I can't find any doc or issues that address this problem.

Thanks,

Christian

[zoltiecodes]

Hi Christian,

What is your full array with the 'header' key? And how do you use it in the trans() function?

If you have an array like this in your language file:

'header' => array( 'menu' => array( 'experts' => array( 'find' => 'Find Experts', ... ) ) ), (I don't know how to put them into new lines here, sorry)

Then you can get the text by: trans('fileName.header.menu.experts.find');

[christiansyl]

The array I described above is in a file called app.php. So I am using the following to get the translation: trans('app.header.menu.experts.find') Its working fine when my language file has the following format:

return [
'header.menu.experts.find' => 'Find Experts',
...
]

But its giving me the exception described above when my language file has the following format (this is the output from the script).

return array (
  'header' => 
  array (
    'joinExpert' => 'Sluiten als expert',
    'login' => 'Log in',
    'register' => 'Registreren',
    'menu' => 
    array (
      'dashboard' => 'Dashboard',
      'experts' => 
      array (
        'find' => 'Vind Experts',
        'findServices' => 'Vind Experts Services',
      ),
      'conversations' => 'conversaties',
      'projects' => 
      array (
        'overview' => 'project Overzicht',
        'new' => 'Create New Project',
        'bidding' => 'Blader Beschikbaar Project voor Bidding',
      ),
      'finance' => 'Finance
',
      'services' => 'diensten',
      'bids' => 'biedingen',
    ),
  ),

  ...
  );

[christiansyl]

Finally, after some debugging I found out the source of the problem.... All the details are available in that post on Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/40933493/laravel-localization-file-format-error-array-versus-format