WPML’s Database Tables

Amir

Updated

October 18, 2024

WPML stores language, translation, country flag, and string translations in separate tables. You can view these using a database editor such as phpMyAdmin.

WPML’s Database Model

The following diagram shows the model of the tables that WPML uses:

Language and Translation Table

The table that holds the language and translation information is called icl_translations.

• Each site content element configured as translatable (post, page, tag, category, custom post type, and custom taxonomies) has an entry in this table. Note: Comments are not translatable but they have a record in icl_translations because they have language information assigned to them.
• The entry specifies the item’s language and the translation group (element type) it belongs to.
• Entries of the same translation cluster share the same value in element_type and trid columns.
• The entry with no source language (NULL) in the same cluster is the original entry.

It has the following columns:

• translation_id – serial number
• element_type – the type of the element. This value is explained and retrieved in the hook wpml_element_type.
• element_id – the ID of the item (post_id for post types, term_taxonomy_id for taxonomy terms)
• trid – the ID of the translation group
• language_code – language code of the item
• source_language_code – if translated, the language of the original item

For example, if we have an English post with ID=3, that is translated to Spanish and the Spanish translation has ID=7, the icl_translations table will look like this:

* Because the two entries have the same trid value for trid, they are translations of one another. The value itself is not important.

Country Flag Table

WPML ships with a large collection of country flags. Be aware that associating languages with countries can be problematic. Many languages are spoken (sometimes differently) in different countries. However, country flags are still a helpful visual cue and help visitors spot their language easily.

WPML’s country flags are stored in the res/flags directory and the icl_flags table indicates which flag to return for each country. The columns of the icl_flags table are:

• id – serial number
• lang_code – the language code
• flag – the name of the flag file
• from_template – “0”: take the flag from WPML’s res/flags folder, “1”: take the flag from the theme directory

If you want to use a different flag, you can upload a custom flag file by going to WPML → Languages and clicking Edit Languages.

You can use this same Edit Languages page to add a custom language.

String Translation Table

Most WordPress sites include some strings that don’t belong to any item (post, page, tag, category) but still need to be translated – for example, the blog’s tagline.

WPML includes a mechanism called String Translation, to handle these strings.

The strings are kept in the icl_strings table with the following columns:

• id – serial number
• language – language
• context – the string’s context (indicates what the string belongs to)
• name – name of the string
• value – the strings value (its contents)
• string_package_id –  ID of the package that the string belongs to
• type – type of editor to use when editing the string via the translation editor ( LINE, AREA or VISUAL )
• title – the title of the string to display in the translation editor
• status – translation status indicating if the string is fully translated to all languages
• gettext_context – the context set in the gettext function, eg _x
• domain_name_context_md5 – unique key to improve lookup performance

Translations of a string are kept in the icl_string_translations table:

• id – serial number
• string_id – the ID (serial number) of the string being translated
• language – the language of the translation
• status – the status of the translation (complete / not complete)
• value – the translation itself
• translator_id – id of translator
• translation_service – translation service used to translate the string. Can be empty, local or a remote service
• batch_id – ID of the batch when a string is translated by a translation service
• translation_date – date of translation

All WPML Tables

Here is a complete list of all the tables WPML uses:

wp_icl_background_task
wp_icl_content_status
wp_icl_core_status
wp_icl_flags
wp_icl_languages
wp_icl_languages_translations
wp_icl_locale_map
wp_icl_message_status
wp_icl_mo_files_domains
wp_icl_node
wp_icl_reminders
wp_icl_strings
wp_icl_string_batches
wp_icl_string_packages
wp_icl_string_positions
wp_icl_string_status
wp_icl_string_translations
wp_icl_translate
wp_icl_translate_job
wp_icl_translations
wp_icl_translation_batches
wp_icl_translation_downloads
wp_icl_translation_status