Question

Does C# offer a way to translate strings on-the-fly or something similiar?

I’m now working on some legacy code, which has some parts like this:

section.AddParagraph(String.Format("Premise: {0}", currentReport.Tenant.Code));
section.AddParagraph(String.Format("Description: {0}", currentReport.Tenant.Name));

section.AddParagraph();

section.AddParagraph(String.Format("Issued: #{0:D5}", currentReport.Id));
section.AddParagraph(String.Format("Date: {0}", currentReport.Timestamp.ToString(
                     "dd MMM yyyy", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)));
section.AddParagraph(String.Format("Time: {0:HH:mm}", currentReport.Timestamp));

So, I want to implement the translation of these strings on-the-fly based on some substitution table (for example, as Qt does).

• Is this possible (probably, using something what C# already has or using some post-processing – may be possible with PostSharp)?
• Does some generic internalization approach for applications built with C# (from scratch) exist?

Answer 1

Does some generic internalization approach for applications built with C# (from scratch) exist?

Yes, using resource files. And here’s another article on MSDN.