Introduction

This page will guide you towards the creation of an internationalized console project for c-sharp using Gettext, using a SQL database to store the translated strings instead of po files. The source code for this sample can be found here.

This tutorial assumes that you already know how to create a simple console project using these tools.

T4 Template for Database

To instruct the template to instantiate a database resource manager to fetch resource sets from a database, simply add a UseDatabase flag to the template parameters and specify the name of the stored procedure to use to obtain resource sets (we will create this SP later).

<#@ assembly name="System.Configuration" #>

<#
this.ClassName = "Strings";
this.ResourceName = "Strings";
this.NamespaceName = "Gettext.Samples.Database";
this.UseDatabase = true;
this.StoredProcedureName = "GettextGetResourceSet";
#>

<#@ include file="..\..\Core\Gettext.Cs\Templates\Strings.tt" #>

The StoredProcedureName value specifies which stored procedure should be invoked to obtain a full resource set given the culture. This is, given a culture code, obtain all key/value records for that culture.

You must also add a Gettext connection string in the application configuration file to instruct the application how to create the connection that will be used for obtaining the resource sets.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="Gettext" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS; Initial Catalog=GettextSample; Integrated Security=SSPI;"/>
  </connectionStrings>
</configuration>

These are the only changes required on the application itself. The major changes now are how to handle the po files and inserting them into the database.

Database Resource Generator

One of the tools included in this package is the Database Resource Generator. See this page for more details on how to configure it appropriately before you continue reading.

Preparing the Database

After creating an empty GettextSample database, and configuring the application settings and connection string for the generator, you can use it to set up all necessary artifacts. Invoke the generator with the -p switch so it sets up both the strings table and all the required stored procedures.

Your database should now have the Strings table, and GettextGetResourceSet, GettextInsertResource and GettextDeleteResourceSet stored procedures.

Dumping po files

When the translators have the po files ready, it is time to insert them into the database. Still using po files for the translations allows you to keep a Pootle instance for managing your translators, regardless of whether the application itself uses raw po files or a database as a back end for the resource sets.

Depending on where you will be keeping the po translated files, it is a good practice to create a batch to dump all translations files to the database by invoking the database resource generator.

SET dbrsgen=..\..\..\Tools\Gettext.DatabaseResourceGenerator\bin\Debug\DatabaseResourceGenerator.exe

echo Dumping culture sets into DB...
CALL %dbrsgen% -i ..\Translated\es\Strings.po -c es -a
CALL %dbrsgen% -i ..\Translated\en\Strings.po -c en -a
CALL %dbrsgen% -i ..\Translated\pt\Strings.po -c pt -a
CALL %dbrsgen% -i ..\Translated\fr\Strings.po -c fr -a
pause

You should see the following records now in your Strings table in the database; they will be used for translation when the project is executed.

Execute the project

Now you have both configured your project to use a database as a repository for translated resource sets, and have dumped all translated strings into the database. You are ready to run the project and check the results!