Mock-translating resx files
If you're developing an international application, one of the easiest ways you can test it for localizability is to mock-translate its resource files to a foreign alphabet or writing system and then go through it looking for English text. Here's some simple code based on one of our tools that mock-translates a resx file to hangul:
using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Resources;
using System.Text;
public class MockTranslation
{
private static Random random = new Random();
public static void MockTranslate( string inputFilename , string outputFilename )
{
ResXResourceReader reader;
ResXResourceWriter writer;
string key;
string oldValue;
StringBuilder newValue;
using ( reader = new ResXResourceReader( inputFilename ) )
{
using ( writer = new ResXResourceWriter( outputFilename ) )
{
foreach ( DictionaryEntry entry in reader )
{
key = (string)entry.Key;
oldValue = (string)entry.Value;
newValue = new StringBuilder( oldValue.Length );
newValue.Append( "[[[" );
foreach ( char oldCharacter in oldValue )
{
if ( Char.IsLetter( oldCharacter ) )
{
newValue.Append( (char)( 0xAC00 + random.Next( 0xD7A3 - 0xAC00 ) ) );
}
else
{
newValue.Append( oldCharacter );
}
}
newValue.Append( "]]]" );
writer.AddResource( key , newValue.ToString() );
}
}
}
}
}
We add square brackets to the values to help find embedded strings and string concatenation. We only convert letters so we don't break format strings. A more complicated implementation would support multiple alphabets or writing systems, support combined writing systems (hangul+hanja, hiragana+katakana+kanji, etc), change word length to simulate expansion or contraction of words in different languages, perform machine translation, etc. For many applications, though, this should be sufficient.
Colin
04:43 PM | Colin
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