Categories: Java | Code Examples | Localization

This page was last modified 18:39, 29 May 2007.

From Forum Nokia Wiki

Managing the different text translations of a game can easily be done by supplying a simple text file for each language in the resource folder. For instance, resource strings for English go in en.txt:

Add|Choose|Remove|View|etc...

resource strings for Spanish es.txt:

Añadir| Elegir| Eliminar| Ver | etc...

In this case we choose "|" as a delimiter. It's important to use a character that doesn't commonly appear in text.

Then you can parse the text into an array using the following code:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.Vector;
 
public class Translator
{
	private static Vector text;
	public static final short add = 0;
	public static final short choose = 1;
	public static final short remove = 2;
	public static final short view = 3;
	private static final int maxBuffer = 0x800;
	public Translator()
	{}
 
	public static void readText() 
	{
		text = new Vector();
		try 
		{
			// get the text resource as a stream
			InputStream is = Runtime.getRuntime().getClass()
				.getResourceAsStream("/en.txt");
			InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is);
			char[] buffer = new char[maxBuffer];
			char[] currItem = new char[400];
			int n = 0;
			
			int read = 0;
			int currPos = 0;
			char c;
			String strText;
			do
			{
				read = isr.read(buffer, 0, maxBuffer);
				if (read == -1) 
					break;
				n = 0;
				do
				{
					// now we have a part of the file stored in buffer, so then
					// we load it into curr string
					while(n < read && buffer[n] != '|')
					{
						currItem[currPos] = buffer[n];
						n++;
						currPos++;
						if (currPos >= currItem.length-1)
						{
							DebugStuff.print("buffer overflow at "+text.size()+" item");
							return;
						}
					}	// end while
					if (n == read) break;
					// we have recieved a token before finishing the buffer
					if (n < read) 
					{
						strText = new String(currItem, 0, currPos);
						text.addElement(strText);
						currPos = 0;
						do 
						{
							n++;
							if (n == read) break;
							c = buffer[n];
						} while (c == '\n' || c == '\r' || c == ' ');
						// Note: there might be a problem if white space after token occurs exactly after reading a block
					}
				} while(true);	
			} while (true);
			// note: any trailing characters without a delimiter will be ignored 
			isr.close();
		} 
		catch (IOException e)
		{
			DebugStuff.print(e.toString());
			return;
		}
	}
	
	static String get(int id)
	{
		if (id >= text.size()) return "missing string";
		return (String)text.elementAt(id);
	}
}

(In fact this is quite handy code to use for parsing any text delimited file)

• Note: this code does not support Unicode.

Finally you access the localised strings as follows:

String str = Translator.get(Translator.add)