PLEASE READ! Not the end of the world, but if I start booking in the code a lot of people can be very pissed off if they don't agree with what I need to do.
Externalizing strings. I can now externalize all the strings in the ofbiz code base. I used the antlr parser generator and a JAVA 1.5 grammar to write a program to do it. The problem I now have is that there is more than one resource file per module and that the format for the key strings differs from one module property file to the other module property file. The first question is the number of property files per module. Can we not have one property file per module? I understand that the different files create a namespace effect, but this same effect can be gotten by encoding the namespace in the property key. Eg error.ui.get.lost=You made a mistake. Go to the start and try again. If we do this then all the property strings can be in one file. I would prefer one property file per module with the namespace encoded as part of the key. The second issue is the key string format. I need to now what is the preferred key string format please? There are 2 formats in general Example 1. Name1Name2Name3 - like a java id with the first letter in caps 2. name1.name2.name3 - '.' in place of the spaces Some of the keys also contains contextual information eg error.module.name1.name2 I can try to place contextual information in the generated keys for a message when I run the program that extract the strings, but don't hold your breath as this is VERY hard to do in principle. If I can get some consensus on the format of the key strings then I will go and change all the key string and property files to the same format. If nobody responds to this mail then I will change all the key strings as in format 2 above. It is more readable for me. THIS CHANGE AFFECTS ALL THE FILES IN ofbiz! There are more problems with the message string constructions that I never foresaw and cannot find a simple way to resolve. This relates to constructs like String message = "this " + ( isThere == null ? " is " : isThere.toString) + "."; I need to go and rewrite the message by hand in such a way that it can be translated to other languages. The above example does not happen often. I cannot guarantee that there are other messages that are constructed in a similar manner. We will just have to go through the code looking for other strange examples. One disadvantage of programmatically restructuring code is that it is hard to deal with exceptions. One example of exceptions is the construction of strings contacting 1. SQL 2. html String. If no one complains about this then I will extract these strings as well. NOTE: This e-mail message is subject to the MTN Group disclaimer see http://www.mtn.co.za/default.aspx?pid=34411
