xref: /aoo4110/main/offapi/com/sun/star/resource/XResourceBundle.idl (revision b1cdbd2c)

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#ifndef __com_sun_star_resource_XResourceBundle_idl__
#define __com_sun_star_resource_XResourceBundle_idl__

#ifndef __com_sun_star_container_XNameAccess_idl__
#include <com/sun/star/container/XNameAccess.idl>
#endif

#ifndef __com_sun_star_lang_Locale_idl__
#include <com/sun/star/lang/Locale.idl>
#endif


//=============================================================================

module com { module sun { module star { module resource {

//=============================================================================
/** Resource bundles contain locale-specific objects.

	<p>When your program needs a locale-specific resource, such as
	<code>String</code> for example, your program can load it from the
	resource bundle that is appropriate for the current user's locale. In
	this way, you can write program code that is largely independent of
	the user's locale, which isolates most, if not all, of the
	locale-specific information in resource bundles.

	<p>This allows you to write programs that can:

	<UL type=SQUARE>

	<LI> be easily localized, or translated, into different
	languages.

	<LI> handle multiple locales at once.

	<LI> be easily modified, later, to support even more locales.

	</UL>

	<P> One resource bundle is, conceptually, a set of related services
	that supports <code>XResourceBundle</code>. Each related service of
	<code>XResourceBundle</code> has the same base name plus an
	additional component that identifies its locale. For example, suppose
	your resource bundle is named <code>MyResources</code>. The first
	service you are likely to implement is the default resource bundle,
	which has the same name as its family--<code>MyResources</code>. You
	can also provide as many related locale-specific services as you need.

	For example, perhaps you would provide a German one named
	<code>MyResources_de</code>.

	<P>
	Each related implementation of <code>XResourceBundle</code> contains
	the same items, but the items have been translated for the locale
	represented by that <code>XResourceBundle</code> implementation. For
	example, both <code>MyResources</code> and <code>MyResources_de</code>
	may have a <code>String</code> that is used on a button for
	confirming operations. In <code>MyResources</code> the
	<code>String</code> may contain <code>OK</code> and in
	<code>MyResources_de</code> it may contain <code>Gut</code>.

	<P>
	If there are different resources for different countries, you
	can make specializations: for example, <code>MyResources_de_CH</code>
	is the German language (de) in Switzerland (CH). If you only want to
	modify some of the resources in the specialization, you can do so.

	<P>
	When your program needs a locale-specific object, it loads

	the <code>XResourceBundle</code> implementation using the
	<type>XResourceBundleLoader</type> service:

	<listing>
	XResourceBundle myResources = xLoader.getBundle("MyResources", currentLocale);
	</listing>

	<p>The first argument specifies the family name of the resource
	bundle that contains the object in question. The second argument
	indicates the desired locale. <code>getBundle</code> uses these two
	arguments to construct the name of the <code>ResourceBundle</code>
	subclass it should load according to the following specifications.

	<P>The resource bundle lookup searches for services with various
	suffixes on the basis of (1) the desired locale and (2) the current
	default locale as returned by Locale.getDefault(), and (3) the root
	resource bundle (baseclass), in the following order from lower-level
	(more specific) to parent-level (less specific):
	<p> baseclass + "_" + language1 + "_" + country1 + "_" + variant1
	<BR> baseclass + "_" + language1 + "_" + country1
	<BR> baseclass + "_" + language1
	<BR> baseclass + "_" + language2 + "_" + country2 + "_" + variant2
	<BR> baseclass + "_" + language2 + "_" + country2
	<BR> baseclass + "_" + language2
	<BR> baseclass

	<P> For example, if the current default locale is <TT>en_US</TT>, the
	locale that the caller is interested in is <TT>fr_CH</TT>, and the
	resource bundle name is <TT>MyResources</TT>; resource bundle lookup
	will search for the following services, in order:
	<BR> <TT>MyResources_fr_CH
	<BR> MyResources_fr
	<BR> MyResources_en_US
	<BR> MyResources_en
	<BR> MyResources</TT>

	<P> The result of the lookup is a service, but that service may be
	backed by a property file on disk. If a lookup fails,
	<code>getBundle()</code> throws a
	<code>MissingResourceException</code>.

	<P> The base service <strong>must</strong> be fully qualified (for
	example, <code>myPackage::MyResources</code>, not just
	<code>MyResources</code>).

	<P> Resource bundles contain key/value pairs. The keys uniquely
	identify a locale-specific object in the bundle. Here is an
	example of a <code>XResourceBundle</code> implementation that contains
	two key/value pairs:

	<listing>
	class MyResource extends com.sun.star.resource.XResourceBundle
	{
		// some queryInterface stuff
		// ...
		public final Object getDirectElement(String key)
		{
			if (key.equals("okKey")) return "Ok";
			if (key.equals("cancelKey")) return "Cancel";
			return null;
		}
	}
	</listing>

	<p>Keys are always <code>String</code>s. In this example, the keys
	are <code>OkKey</code> and <code>CancelKey</code>. In the above
	example, the values are also <code>String</code>s--<code>OK</code>
	and <code>Cancel</code>--but they do not have to be. The values can
	be any type of object.

	<P> You retrieve an object from resource bundle using the appropriate
	get method. Because <code>OkKey</code> and <code>CancelKey</code>
	are both strings, you use <code>getByName</code> to retrieve them:

	<listing>
	button1 = new Button(myResourceBundle.getByName("OkKey").getString());
	button2 = new Button(myResourceBundle.getByName("CancelKey").getString());
	</listing>

	<p>The get methods all require the key as an argument and return
	the object if found. If the object is not found, the get methods
	throw a <type scope="com::sun::star::container">NoSuchElementException</type>.

	<P> <STRONG>NOTE:</STRONG> You should always supply a base service
	with no suffixes. This will be the class of "last resort" if a
	locale is requested that does not exist. In fact, you must provide
	<I>all</I> of the services in any given inheritance chain for which
	you provide a resource.  For example, if you provide
	<TT>MyResources_fr_BE</TT>, you must provide <I>both</I>
	<TT>MyResources</TT> <I>and</I> <TT>MyResources_fr</TT>, or the
	resource bundle lookup will not work right.

	<P>You do not have to restrict yourself to using a single family of
	<code>ResourceBundle</code>s. For example, you could have a set of
	bundles for exception messages, <code>ExceptionResources</code>
	(<code>ExceptionResources_fr</code>, <code>ExceptionResources_de</code>, ...),
	and one for widgets, <code>WidgetResource</code> (<code>WidgetResources_fr</code>,
	<code>WidgetResources_de</code>, ...); breaking up the resources however you like.

	@see		MissingResourceException
	@see         Locale
	@version     0.1 26 May 1999
	@author      Mark Davis
	@author      Markus Meyer
	@deprecated	draft
*/
published interface XResourceBundle: com::sun::star::container::XNameAccess
{
	//-------------------------------------------------------------------------
    /** contains the parent bundle of this bundle.

		<p>The parent bundle is searched by the method
		<method scope="com::sun::star::container">XNameAccess::getByName</method>
		when this bundle does not contain a particular resource.
     */
    [attribute] XResourceBundle Parent;

	//-------------------------------------------------------------------------
	/** @returns
		the locale for this resource bundle.

		<p>This function can be used to determine whether the
		resource bundle that is returned really corresponds to the
		requested locale or is a fallback.

	*/
	com::sun::star::lang::Locale getLocale();

	//-------------------------------------------------------------------------
	/** @returns
		an object from a resource bundle or NULL if no resource
		exists.

		<p>It does not look in the parents.

		@param key
			specifies the element.
	*/
	any getDirectElement( [in] string key );

};

//=============================================================================

}; }; }; };

#endif