How to use localization in C

Question

I just can t seem to get localization to work    I have a class library  Now I want to create resx files in there  and return some values based on the thread culture    How can I do that

User · Answer

Great answer by F M  rk  But if you want to update translation  or add new languages once the application is released  you re stuck  because you always have to recompile it to generate the resources dll   Here is a solution to manually compile a resource dll  It uses the resgen exe and al exe tools  installed with the sdk    Say you have a Strings fr resx resource file  you can compile a resources dll with the following batch   resgen exe  compile Strings fr resx WpfRibbonApplication1 Strings fr resources  Al exe  t lib  embed WpfRibbonApplication1 Strings fr resources  culture  fr   out  WpfRibbonApplication1 resources dll  del WpfRibbonApplication1 Strings fr resources pause   Be sure to keep the original namespace in the file names  here  WpfRibbonApplication1

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In my case   assembly  System Resources NeutralResourcesLanguage  ru-RU      in the AssemblyInfo cs prevented things to work as usual

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It s quite simple  actually  Create a new resource file  for example Strings resx  Set Access Modifier to Public  Use the apprioriate file template  so Visual Studio will automatically generate an accessor class  the name will be Strings  in this case   This is your default language   Now  when you want to add  say  German localization  add a localized resx file  This will be typically Strings de resx in this case  If you want to add additional localization for  say  Austria  you ll additionally create a Strings de-AT resx   Now go create a string - let s say a string with the name HelloWorld  In your Strings resx  add this string with the value  Hello  world    In Strings de resx  add  Hallo  Welt    And in Strings de-AT resx  add  Servus  Welt    That s it so far   Now you have this generated Strings class  and it has a property with a getter HelloWorld  Getting this property will load  Servus  Welt   when your locale is de-AT   Hallo  Welt  when your locale is any other de locale  including de-DE and de-CH   and  Hello  World   when your locale is anything else  If a string is missing in the localized version  the resource manager will automatically walk up the chain  from the most specialized to the invariant resource   You can use the ResourceManager class for more control about how exactly you are loading things  The generated Strings class uses it as well

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In addition  Fredrik M  rk s great answer on strings  to add localization to a form do the following    Set the form s property  Localizable  to true Change the form s Language property to the language you want  from a nice drop-down with them all in  Translate the controls in that form and move them about if need be  squash those really long full French sentences in     Edit  This MSDN article on Localizing Windows Forms is not the original one I linked     but might shed more light if needed   the old one has been taken away

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ResourceManager and  resx are bit messy    You could use Lexical Localization   which allows embedding default value and culture specific values into the code  and be expanded in external localization files for futher cultures  like  json or  resx    public class MyClass            lt summary gt          Localization root for this class           lt  summary gt      static ILine localization   LineRoot Global Type lt MyClass gt               lt summary gt          Localization key  Ok  with a default string  and couple of inlined strings for two cultures           lt  summary gt      static ILine ok   localization Key  Success                Text  Success                fi  Onnistui                sv  Det funkar              lt summary gt          Localization key  Error  with a default string  and couple of inlined ones for two cultures           lt  summary gt      static ILine error   localization Key  Error                Format  Error  Code 0x 0 X8                  fi  Virhe  Koodi 0x 0 X8                  sv  S  nder  Kod 0x 0 X8           public void DoOk                 Console WriteLine  ok               public void DoError                 Console WriteLine  error Value 0x100                     I m maintainer of that library

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A fix and elaboration of  Fredrik M  rk answer    Add a strings resx Resource file to your project  or a different filename  Set Access Modifier to Public  in the opened strings resx file tab  Add a string resouce in the resx file   example  name Hello  value Hello  Save the resource file   Visual Studio auto-generates a respective strings class  which is actually placed in strings Designer cs  The class is in the same namespace that you would expect a newly created  cs file to be placed in   This code always prints Hello  because this is the default resource and no language-specific resources are available   Console WriteLine strings Hello     Now add a new language-specific resource    Add strings fr resx  for French  Add a string with the same name as previously  but different value   name Hello  value Salut    The following code prints Salut   Thread CurrentThread CurrentUICulture   CultureInfo GetCultureInfo  fr-FR    Console WriteLine strings Hello     What resource is used depends on Thread CurrentThread CurrentUICulture  It is set depending on Windows UI language setting  or can be set manually like in this example  Learn more about this here   You can add country-specific resources like strings fr-FR resx or strings fr-CA resx   The string to be used is determined in this priority order    From country-specific resource like strings fr-CA resx From language-specific resource like strings fr resx From default strings resx   Note that language-specific resources generate satellite assemblies   Also learn how CurrentCulture differs from CurrentUICulture here

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In general you put your translations in resource files  e g  resources resx   Each specific culture has a different name  e g  resources nl resx  resources fr resx  resources de resx       Now the most important part of a solution is to maintain your translations  In Visual Studio install the Microsoft MAT tool  Multilingual App Toolkit  MAT   Works with winforms  wpf  asp net  core   uwp       In general  e g  for a WPF solution  in the WPF project   Install the Microsoft MAT extension for Visual Studio  In the Solution Explorer  navigate to your Project   Properties   AssemblyInfo cs Add in AssemblyInfo cs your default  neutral language  in my case English    assembly  System Resources NeutralResourcesLanguage  en    Select your project in Solution Explorer and in Visual Studio  from the top menu  click  Tools     Multilingual App Toolkit     Enable Selection   to enable MAT for the project    Now Right mouse click on the project in Solution Explorer  select  Multilingual App Toolkit     Add translation languages     and select the language that you want to add translations for  e g  Dutch     What you will see is that a new folder will be created  called  MultilingualResources  containing a     nl xlf file   The only thing you now have to do is    add your translation to your default resources resx file  in my case English  Translate by clicking the  xlf file  NOT the  resx file  as the  xlf files will generate update the  resx files      the  xlf files should open with the  Multilingual Editor   if this is not the case  right mouse click on the  xlf file  select  Open With     and select  Multilingual Editor    Have fun  now you can also see what has not been translated  export translations in xlf to external translation companies  import them again  recycle translations from other projects etc     More info    Using the Multilingual App Toolkit 4 0   https   docs microsoft com windows uwp design globalizing use-mat Multilingual App Toolkit blog  visit   http   aka ms matblog Multilingual App Toolkit User Voice feature voting site  visit   http   aka ms matvoice

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Add a Resource file to your project  you can call it  strings resx   by doing the following  Right-click Properties in the project  select Add -  New Item    in the context menu  then in the list of Visual C  Items pick  Resources file  and name it strings resx  Add a string resouce in the resx file and give it a good name  example  name it  Hello  with and give it the value  Hello   Save the resource file  note  this will be the default resource file  since it does not have a two-letter language code  Add references to your program  System Threading and System Globalization   Run this code   Console WriteLine Properties strings Hello     It should print  Hello    Now  add a new resource file  named  strings fr resx   note the  fr  part  this one will contain resources in French   Add a string resource with the same name as in strings resx  but with the value in French  Name  Hello   Value  Salut    Now  if you run the following code  it should print Salut   Thread CurrentThread CurrentUICulture   CultureInfo GetCultureInfo  fr-FR    Console WriteLine Properties strings Hello     What happens is that the system will look for a resource for  fr-FR   It will not find one  since we specified  fr  in your file    It will then fall back to checking for  fr   which it finds  and uses    The following code  will print  Hello    Thread CurrentThread CurrentUICulture   CultureInfo GetCultureInfo  en-US    Console WriteLine Properties strings Hello     That is because it does not find any  en-US  resource  and also no  en  resource  so it will fall back to the default  which is the one that we added from the start   You can create files with more specific resources if needed  for instance strings fr-FR resx and strings fr-CA resx for French in France and Canada respectively   In each such file you will need to add the resources for those strings that differ from the resource that it would fall back to  So if a text is the same in France and Canada  you can put it in strings fr resx  while strings that are different in Canadian french could go into strings fr-CA resx

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In addition to  Eric Bole-Feysot answer   Thanks to satellite assemblies  localization can be created based on  dll  exe files  This way     source code  VS project  could be separated from language project  adding a new language does not require recompiling the project  translation could be made even by the end-user    There is a little known tool called LSACreator  free for non-commercial use or buy option  which allows you to create localization based on  dll  exe files  In fact  internally  in language project s directory  it creates manages localized versions of resx files and compiles an assembly in similar way as  Eric Bole-Feysot described

[c#] How to use localization in C#

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