Introduction
ASP.NET is a popular programming language used for building web applications. One common requirement in web development is the need to display localized strings based on the user's preferred language. In this article, we will explore how to get localized strings from an ASP.NET Core controller using IStringLocalizer.
What is IStringLocalizer?
IStringLocalizer is an interface provided by ASP.NET Core that allows you to retrieve localized strings from resource files. Resource files contain key-value pairs where the key represents the string identifier and the value represents the localized string in a specific language.
Setting up Localization
Before we can use IStringLocalizer, we need to set up localization in our ASP.NET Core application. This involves configuring the supported cultures and providing resource files for each culture.
To configure supported cultures, we can add the following code to the ConfigureServices method in the Startup.cs file:
services.AddLocalization(options => options.ResourcesPath = "Resources");
services.Configure(options =>
{
var supportedCultures = new[]
{
new CultureInfo("en-US"),
new CultureInfo("fr-FR"),
// Add more supported cultures here
};
options.DefaultRequestCulture = new RequestCulture("en-US");
options.SupportedCultures = supportedCultures;
options.SupportedUICultures = supportedCultures;
});
In the above code, we configure the supported cultures by specifying the CultureInfo objects for each culture. We also set the default request culture to “en-US” and specify the resource path where our resource files are located.
Next, we need to create resource files for each culture. These resource files should be placed in the “Resources” folder. For example, if we have a resource file for English (en-US), we can create a file named “Resources/MyStrings.en-US.resx”.
Using IStringLocalizer in a Controller
Once we have set up localization, we can use IStringLocalizer in our controller to retrieve localized strings. First, we need to inject IStringLocalizer into our controller by adding it as a parameter in the constructor:
Now, we can use the _localizer object to retrieve localized strings. We can do this by calling the GetString method and passing the key of the desired string:
public IActionResult Index()
{
string localizedString = _localizer.GetString("Hello");
return View(localizedString);
}
In the above example, we retrieve the localized string with the key “Hello” and store it in the localizedString variable. We can then pass this variable to our view for display.
Conclusion
In this article, we have explored how to get localized strings from an ASP.NET Core controller using IStringLocalizer. By setting up localization and using IStringLocalizer, we can easily display localized strings based on the user's preferred language. This is an important feature for creating multilingual web applications.
