[Chapter 11] 11.5 Localizing User-Visible Messages
Author: David Flanagan
Date: Thu Jul 31 15:59:10 1997

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| Chapter 11 Internationalization |

## 11.5 Localizing User-Visible Messages

The third task of internationalization involves ensuring that there are no user-visible strings that are hard-coded in an application, instead of being looked up based on the locale. In Example 11.3, for example, the strings "Portfolio value", "Symbol", "Shares", and others are hard-coded in the application and appear in English, even when the program is run in the French locale. The only way to prevent this is to fetch all user-visible messages at runtime, and to translate every message into each of the languages that your application must support.

Java 1.1 helps you handle this task with the `ResourceBundle` class of the `java.util` package. This class represents a "bundle" of resources that can be looked up by name. You define a localized resource bundle for each locale you want to support, and Java takes care of loading the correct bundle for the default (or specified) locale. With the correct bundle loaded, you can look up the resources (typically strings) that your program needs at runtime.

### Working with Resource Bundles

To define a bundle of localized resources, you create a subclass of `ResourceBundle` and provide definitions for the `handleGetObject()` and `getKeys()` methods. `handleGetObject()` is passed the name of a resource; it should return an appropriate localized version of that resource. `getKeys()` should return an `Enumeration` object that gives the user a list of all resource names defined in the `ResourceBundle`. Instead of subclassing `ResourceBundle` directly, however, it is often easier to subclass `ListResourceBundle`. You can also simply provide a property file (see the `java.util.Properties` class) that `ResourceBundle.getBundle()` uses to create an instance of `PropertyResourceBundle`.

To use localized resources from a `ResourceBundle` in a program, you should first call the static `getBundle()` method, which dynamically loads and instantiates a `ResourceBundle`, as described below. The returned `ResourceBundle` has the name you specify and is appropriate for the specified locale (or for the default locale, if no locale is explicitly specified). Once you have obtained a `ResourceBundle` object with `getBundle()`, you use the `getObject()` method to look up resources by name. Note that there is a convenience method, `getString()`, that simply casts the value returned by `getObject()` to be a `String` object.

When you call `getBundle()`, you specify the base name of the desired `ResourceBundle` and a desired locale (if you don't want to rely on the default locale). Recall that a `Locale` is specified with a two-letter language code, an optional two-letter country code, and an optional variant string. `getBundle()` looks for an appropriate `ResourceBundle` class for the locale by appending this locale information to the base name for the bundle. The method looks for an appropriate class with the following algorithm:

1. Search for a class with the following name:

       basename_language_country_variant

   If no such class is found, or no variant string is specified for the locale, it goes to the next step.

2. Search for a class with the following name:

       basename_language_country

   If no such class is found, or no country code is specified for the locale, it goes to the next step.

3. Search for a class with the following name:

       basename_language

   If no such class is found, it goes to the final step.

4. Search for a class which has the same name as the basename, or in other words, seach for a class with the following name:

       basename

   This represents a default resource bundle used by any locale that is not explicitly supported.

At each step in the above process, `getBundle()` checks first for a class file with the given name. If no class file is found, it uses the `getResourceAsStream()` method of `ClassLoader` to look for a `Properties` file with the same name as the class and a .properties extension. If such a properties file is found, its contents are used to create a `Properties` object and `getBundle()` instantiates and returns a `PropertyResourceBundle` that exports the properties in the `Properties` file through the `ResourceBundle` API.

If `getBundle()` cannot find a class or properties file for the specified locale in any of the four search steps above, it repeats the search using the default locale instead of the specified locale. If no appropriate `ResourceBundle` is found in this search either, `getBundle()` throws a `MissingResourceException`.

Any `ResourceBundle` object may have a parent `ResourceBundle` specified for it. When you look up a named resource in a `ResourceBundle`, `getObject()` first looks in the specified bundle, but if the named resource is not defined in that bundle, it recursively looks in the parent bundle. Thus, every `ResourceBundle` "inherits" the resources of its parent, and may choose to "override" some, or all, of these resources. (Note that we are using the terms "inherit" and "override" in a different sense than we do when talking about classes that inherit and override methods in their superclass.) What this means is that every `ResourceBundle` you define does not have to define every resource required by your application. For example, you might define a `ResourceBundle` of messages to display to French-speaking users. Then you might define a smaller and more specialized `ResourceBundle` that overrides a few of these messages so that they are appropriate for French-speaking users who live in Canada.

Your application is not required to find and set up the parent objects for the `ResourceBundle` objects it uses. The `getBundle()` method actually does this for you. When `getBundle()` finds an appropriate class or properties file as described above, it does not immediately return the `ResourceBundle` it has found. Instead, it continues through the remaining steps in the search process listed above, looking for less-specific class or properties files from which the `ResourceBundle` may "inherit" resources. If and when `getBundle()` finds these less-specific resource bundles, it sets them up as the appropriate ancestors of the original bundle. Only once it has checked all possibilities does it return the original `ResourceBundle` object that it created.

To continue the example begun above, when a program runs in Québec, `getBundle()` might first find a small specialized `ResourceBundle` class that has only a few specific Québecois resources. Next, it looks for a more general `ResourceBundle` that contains French messages and it sets this bundle as the parent of the original Québecois bundle. Finally, `getBundle()` looks for (and probably finds) a class that defines a default set of resources, probably written in English (assuming that English is the native tongue of the original programmer). This default bundle is set as the parent of the French bundle (which makes it the grandparent of the Québecois bundle). When the application looks up a named resource, the Québecois bundle is searched first. If the resource is not defined there, then the French bundle is searched, and finally, any named resource not found in the French bundle is looked up in the default bundle.

### ResourceBundle Example

Examining some code makes this discussion of resource bundles much clearer. Example 11.4 is a convenience routine for creating menu panes. Given a list of menu item names, it looks up labels and menu shortcuts for those named menu items in a resource bundle and creates a localized menu pane. The example has a simple test program attached. Figure 11.2 shows the menus it creates in the American, British, and French locales. This program could not run, of course, without localized resource bundles from which the localized menu labels are looked up. Example 11.4 shows American, British, and French resource files used to create each of the menus shown in the figure.

#### Figure 11.2: Localized menu panes

#### Example 11.4: Creating Localized Menu Panes

    import java.awt.*;
    import java.awt.event.*;
    import java.util.Locale;
    import java.util.ResourceBundle;
    import java.util.MissingResourceException;
    /** A convenience class to automatically create localized menu panes. */
    public class SimpleMenu {
      /** The convenience method that creates menu panes. */
      public static Menu create(String bundlename,
                                String menuname, String[] itemnames,
                                ActionListener listener, boolean popup) {
        // Get the resource bundle used for this menu.
        ResourceBundle b = ResourceBundle.getBundle(bundlename);
        // Get the menu title from the bundle.  Use name as default label.
        String menulabel;
        try { menulabel = b.getString(menuname + ".label"); }
        catch(MissingResourceException e) { menulabel = menuname; }
        // Create the menu pane.
        Menu m;
        if (popup) m = new PopupMenu(menulabel);
        else m = new Menu(menulabel);
        // For each named item in the menu.
        for(int i = 0; i < itemnames.length; i++) {
          // Look up the label for the item, using name as default.
          String itemlabel;
          try { itemlabel=b.getString(menuname + "." + itemnames[i] + ".label"); }
          catch (MissingResourceException e) { itemlabel = itemnames[i]; }
          // Look up a shortcut for the item, and create the menu shortcut, if any.
          String shortcut;
          try{shortcut = b.getString(menuname + "." + itemnames[i]+".shortcut"); }
          catch (MissingResourceException e) { shortcut = null; }
          MenuShortcut ms = null;
          if (shortcut != null) ms = new MenuShortcut(shortcut.charAt(0));
          // Create the menu item.
          MenuItem mi;
          if (ms != null) mi = new MenuItem(itemlabel, ms);
          else mi = new MenuItem(itemlabel);
          // Register an action listener and command for the item.
          if (listener != null) {
            mi.addActionListener(listener);
            mi.setActionCommand(itemnames[i]);
          }
          // Add the item to the menu.
          m.add(mi);
        }
        // Return the automatically created localized menu.
        return m;
      }
      /** A simple test program for the above code. */
      public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Set the default locale based on the command-line args.
        if (args.length == 2) Locale.setDefault(new Locale(args[0], args[1]));
        Frame f = new Frame("SimpleMenu Test");  // Create a window.
        MenuBar menubar = new MenuBar();         // Create a menubar.
        f.setMenuBar(menubar);                   // Add menubar to window.
        // Create a menu using our convenience routine (and the default locale).
        Menu colors = SimpleMenu.create("Menus", "colors",
                                        new String[] { "red", "green", "blue" },
                                        null, false);
        menubar.add(colors);                     // Add the menu to the menubar.
        f.setSize(300, 150);                     // Set the window size.
        f.show();                                // Pop the window up.
      }
    }

This example does not stand alone. It relies on resource bundles to localize the menu. Example 11.5 shows three property files that serve as resource bundles for this example. Note that this single example listing actually contains the bodies of three separate files.

#### Example 11.5: Property Files as Resource Bundles

    # The file Menus.properties is the default "Menus" resource bundle.
    # As an American programmer, I made my own locale the default.
    colors.label=Colors
    colors.red.label=Red
    colors.red.shortcut=R
    colors.green.label=Green
    colors.green.shortcut=G
    colors.blue.label=Blue
    colors.blue.shortcut=B
    # This is the file Menus_en_GB.properties.  It is the resource bundle for
    # British English.  Note that it overrides only a single resource definition
    # and simply inherits the rest from the default (American) bundle.
    colors.label=Colours
    # This is the file Menus_fr.properties.  It is the resource bundle for all
    # French-speaking locales.  It overrides most, but not all, of the resources
    # in the default bundle.
    colors.label=Couleurs
    colors.red.label=Rouge
    colors.green.label=Vert
    colors.green.shortcut=V
    colors.blue.label=Bleu

Handling Local Customs |  | Formatted Messages