Detect browser language in Rails

Question

How do you detect the users language (in RoR) as set in the browser? I will have a select box the user can use at anytime, but I\'d like to default to whatever their browser

Answer 1

Last night I did this tiny gem: accept_language

It can be integrated in a Rails app like that:

# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_action :best_locale_from_request!

  def best_locale_from_request!
    I18n.locale = best_locale_from_request
  end

  def best_locale_from_request
    return I18n.default_locale unless request.headers.key?('HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE')

    string = request.headers.fetch('HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE')
    locale = AcceptLanguage.intersection(string, I18n.default_locale, *I18n.available_locales)

    # If the server cannot serve any matching language,
    # it can theoretically send back a 406 (Not Acceptable) error code.
    # But, for a better user experience, this is rarely done and more
    # common way is to ignore the Accept-Language header in this case.
    return I18n.default_locale if locale.nil?

    locale
  end
end

I hope it can help.