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Localization

All new Xamarin.Android MSBuild error or warning messages should be localizable, so when adding a new message, follow these steps:

  1. Add the new message to src/Xamarin.Android.Build.Tasks/Properties/Resources.resx. Use the error or warning code as the resource name. For example, for XA0000, use XA0000 as the name:

    Managed Resources Editor with XA0000 as the name for a resource

    Be sure to use Visual Studio or Visual Studio for Mac to edit the .resx file so that the ResXFileCodeGenerator tool will run and update the corresponding Resources.Designer.cs file.

  2. Use the generated property from Resources.Designer.cs in the LogCodedError() and LogCodedWarning() calls:

    Log.LogCodedError ("XA0000", Properties.Resources.XA0000);

    Or, to log a message directly from an MSBuild target, pass the name of the resource to the ResourceName parameter of the <AndroidError/> or <AndroidWarning/> task instead:

    <AndroidError Code="XA0000" ResourceName="XA0000" />

  3. After adding the new message, build Xamarin.Android.Build.Tasks.csproj locally. This will run the targets from dotnet/xliff-tasks to update the .xlf XLIFF localization files with the latest changes from the .resx file.

  4. Include the changes to the.resx file as well as the generated changes to the Resources.Designer.cs file and the .xlf files in the commit.

Guidelines

  • When an error or warning code is used with more than one output string, use semantically meaningful suffixes to distinguish the resource names. As a made-up example:

    <data name="XA0000_Files" xml:space="preserve">
  <value>Invalid files.</value>
</data>
<data name="XA0000_Directories" xml:space="preserve">
  <value>Invalid directories.</value>
</data>

  • To include values of variables in the message, use numbered format items like {0} and {1} rather than string interpolation or string concatenation.

    The .resx infrastructure does not interoperate with C# 6 string interpolation.

    String concatenation should also be avoided because it means splitting up the message across multiple string resources, which makes it more complicated to provide appropriate context to the translators.

  • Use the comments field in the .resx file to provide additional context to the translators. For example, if a format item like {0} needs additional explanation, add a comment:

    {0} - The managed type name

    For a few more examples, see the dotnet/sdk repo:

    https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/blob/master/src/Tasks/Common/Resources/Strings.resx