Usage

Using the i18n code is really straightforward; several examples of internationalized applications exist within the Avalon application family.

The following code is an example of the usage of the i18n package.

// in a file called src/java/MyClass.java

import org.apache.avalon.excalibur.i18n.ResourceManager;
import org.apache.avalon.excalibur.i18n.Resources;

public class MyClass implements MyInterface
{
    private static final Resources REZ =
        ResourceManager.getPackageResources( MyClass.class );

    public void doStuff( Object myArg ) throws Exception
    {
        // ...
        final String stupidArgumentIdentifier = myArg.toString();
        // ...
        final String message =
                REZ.getString( "myclass.error.dostuff.bad-argument",
                        stupidArgumentIdentifier );
        m_logger.error( message );
        throw new SomeException( message, myArg );
    }

}

# in a file called src/java/Resources.properties
myclass.error.dostuff.bad-argument=the argument passed to the \
doStuff method is invalid; it is {0}, which is plain silly!
                

That's basically all there is to it. If you follow this pattern consistently, it will be extremely easy to i18n your application by just putting in place a different Resources.properties.

This i18n package is, indeed, a trivial wrapper around the built-in i18n features java has using ResourceBundles and the like. See the java api docs for ResourceBundle to learn more about i18n, and take a look at the javadoc for Resources and ResourceManager to see which options are available.