ASP.NET MVC 3 localization with DisplayAttribute and custom resource provider

Question

I use a custom resource provider to get resource strings from a database. This works fine with ASP.NET where I can define the resource type as a string. The metadata attributes for model properties in MVC 3 (like [Range], [Display], [Required] require the type of a Resource as a parameter, where the ResourceType is the type of the generated code-behind class of a .resx file.

    [Display(Name = "Phone", ResourceType = typeof(MyResources))]
    public string Phone { get; set; }

Because I don't have .resx files, such a class does not exist. How can I use the model attributes with a custom resource provider?

I would like to have something like this:

    [Display(Name = "Telefon", ResourceTypeName = "MyResources")]
    public string Phone { get; set; }

The DisplayNameAttribute from System.ComponentModel had a overridable DisplayName Property for this purpose, but the DisplayAttribute class is sealed. For the validation attributes no corresponding classes exist.

Marcin Rybacki · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-08 08:28:34Z

7

The most cleanest way I came up with is to override DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider. Here's a very neat article on how to do this.

http://buildstarted.com/2010/09/14/creating-your-own-modelmetadataprovider-to-handle-custom-attributes/

answered Feb 8, 2012 at 8:28

Marcin Rybacki

1,0341 gold badge10 silver badges20 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

A Khudairy Over a year ago

would you show us how you managed to write that. The article shows how to add a new data notation, but doesn't show anything about localization

pollirrata · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-08 20:05:51Z

4

You can extend the DisplayNameAttribute and override the DisplayName string property. I have something like this

    public class LocalizedDisplayName : DisplayNameAttribute
    {
        private string DisplayNameKey { get; set; }   
        private string ResourceSetName { get; set; }   

        public LocalizedDisplayName(string displayNameKey)
            : base(displayNameKey)
        {
            this.DisplayNameKey = displayNameKey;
        }


        public LocalizedDisplayName(string displayNameKey, string resourceSetName)
            : base(displayNameKey)
        {
            this.DisplayNameKey = displayNameKey;
            this.ResourceSetName = resourceSetName;
        }

        public override string DisplayName
        {
            get
            {
                if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.GlobalResourceSetName))
                {
                    return MyHelper.GetLocalLocalizedString(this.DisplayNameKey);
                }
                else
                {
                    return MyHelper.GetGlobalLocalizedString(this.DisplayNameKey, this.ResourceSetName);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

For MyHelper, the methods can be something like this:

public string GetLocalLocalizedString(string key){
    return _resourceSet.GetString(key);
}

Obviously you will need to add error handling and have the resourceReader set up. More info here

With this, you then decorate your model with the new attribute, passing the key of the resource you want to get the value from, like this

[LocalizedDisplayName("Title")]

Then the Html.LabelFor will display the localized text automatically.

edited Aug 8, 2014 at 20:05

answered Apr 10, 2013 at 17:44

pollirrata

5,2942 gold badges35 silver badges51 bronze badges

2 Comments

A Khudairy Over a year ago

i think you forgot to put the code for "MyHelper.GetLocalLocalizedString"

Machinarius Over a year ago

I know this is going zombie but you deserve more internets for this.

danludwig · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-26 17:05:09Z

2

I think you would have to override the DataAnnotations properties to localize them with a DB resource provider. You could inherit from the current ones, and then specify further properties such as DB connection string to use when getting the resources from your custom provider.

answered Feb 26, 2011 at 17:05

danludwig

47.3k27 gold badges164 silver badges240 bronze badges

2 Comments

slfan Over a year ago

Unfortunately this does not work as the DisplayAttribute is a sealed class. Even if I do my own implementation for the attribute I would have to overwrite the Html Extension methods (e.g. Html.LabelFor) as well.

slfan Over a year ago

I made further investigations: I could derive from DisplayNameAttribute which has an overrideble property DisplayName. In the end I used a T4 template to generate the Resources class because I don't have to implement all data annotation attributes.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

ASP.NET MVC 3 localization with DisplayAttribute and custom resource provider

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

2 Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

2 Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related