Upload the translation file from the template in WordPress (.mo and .po)

Question

I want to put a function in the functions.php file so that when the user activates the template, all the files with .mo and .po extensions are copied to the wp-content\languages\themes path.

For this purpose I have used the following code which did not work:

function load_the_languages() {
 load_theme_textdomain( 'themePro', get_template_directory() . '/languages' );
}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'load_the_languages' );

The source I used to write the above function:

load_theme_textdomain()

Please help me to create a function that can copy all files with .mo and .po extension to wp-content\languages\themes path.

I came up with the above code after a lot of searching and I hope there is a better way to do this.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

The function load_theme_textdomain() is used to load the translation files for the theme, but it doesn't actually copy the files to a different location. If you want to copy the .mo and .po files from your theme's languages directory to the wp-content/languages/themes directory when the theme is activated, you can use the after_switch_theme hook, which fires after the theme iss switched.

function copy_language_files_to_global_directory() {
    $source_directory = get_template_directory() . '/languages';
    $destination_directory = WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/languages/themes';

    if (!is_dir($destination_directory)) {
        wp_mkdir_p($destination_directory);
    }

    // Copy .mo and .po files
    foreach (glob($source_directory . '/*.{mo,po}', GLOB_BRACE) as $file) {
        $destination_file = $destination_directory . '/' . basename($file);
        if (!file_exists($destination_file)) {
            copy($file, $destination_file);
        }
    }
}
add_action('after_switch_theme', 'copy_language_files_to_global_directory');

Hope that helps!