Question

How can i serve a locale appropriate .resx file to a http client in ASP.NET?

e.g.

GET /App_LocalResources/MeshModdler.resx

Background

i have a client-side binary that needs to ask a web-server for the appropriate language resources (i.e. it does not have all possible translations; it asks for the one it needs).

Right now the client-side binary prefers to be given an xml file containing all the localized resources (strings, etc). This XML file has a format that looks curiously like Microsoft’s resx format (one might think the format was copied – and they would not be wrong).

Ideally we can use the power of an ASP.NET web-server to locate the appropriate resx file based on the http client’s Accept-Language, e.g.

GET /App_LocalResources/MeshModdler.resx
Accept-Language: az-Cyrl-AZ

Ideally the web-server would try to return, in order of preference:

• MeshModdler.az-Cyrl-AZ.resx
• MeshModdler.az-AZ.resx
• MeshModdler.az.resx
• MeshModdler.resx

But instead the server returns:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found

Bonus Chatter

i know this is not possible. So in addition to a cannot be done answer, i would also accept an answer that just does what i want:

• harnesses the power of an ASP.NET web-server to perform resource resolution and fallback
• allows new localization resx files to be dropped into a folder and have them picked up

• will not require resorting to creating a dummy page that builds what looks like a resx file, but has to thunk every entry with:

  <root> 
     <data name="TesselateMesh.Caption">
         <value><%$ Resources:MeshModdler, TesselateMesh.Caption1 %></value>
     </data>
     ...
  </root>
  

Additional Chatter

The hack for now will be to rename the resx files to xml:

• MeshModdler.az-Cyrl-AZ.xml
• MeshModdler.az-AZ.xml
• MeshModdler.az.xml
• MeshModdler.xml

And re-invent the fallback code:

GET /MeshModdler.az-Cyrl-AZ.xml
404 Not found

GET /MeshModdler.az-AZ.xml
404 Not found

GET /MeshModdler.az.xml
200 Ok

But it would be nice to work with ASP.NET, not against it.

Answer 1

You can create an ASHX file that takes a resource name file and looks up the correct .ResX file on the server. (moving your current fallback logic to /GetResource.ashx?Name=MeshModeler)