Best way to obtain the current active language (when using i18n module)?

Hello,

I found there are 2 ways to determine what the current active language is:

• i18n_get_lang()
• global $i18n_langpath;

Both methods rely on the i18n.module and they both return the current active language as a two-letter code (en, fr, es...). But the first method is a function and the second method is a global variable.

Any idea which should be used? What's the best practice here?

Thanks.