com.motorola.iden.resourcebundle
Class ResourceBundle

java.lang.Object
  com.motorola.iden.resourcebundle.ResourceBundle

Direct Known Subclasses:

ListResourceBundle, PropertyResourceBundle

public abstract class ResourceBundle

extends Object

Resource bundles contain locale-specific objects. When your program needs a locale-specific resource, a String 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 isolating most, if not all, of the locale-specific information in resource bundles.

This allows you to write programs that can be easily localized, or translated, into different languages, can handle multiple locales at once, and can be easily modified later to support even more locales.

Resource bundles belong to families whose members share a common base name, but whose names also have additional components that identify their locales. For example, the base name of a family of resource bundles might be "MyResources". The family should have a default resource bundle which simply has the same name as its family - "MyResources" - and will be used as the bundle of last resort if a specific locale is not supported. The family can then provide as many locale-specific members as needed, for example a German one named "MyResources_de".

Each resource bundle in a family contains the same items, but the items have been translated for the locale represented by that resource bundle. For example, both "MyResources" and "MyResources_de" may have a String that's used on a button for canceling operations. In "MyResources" the String may contain "Cancel" and in "MyResources_de" it may contain "Abbrechen".

If there are different resources for different countries, you can make specializations: for example, "MyResources_de_CH" contains objects for the German language (de) in Switzerland (CH). If you want to only modify some of the resources in the specialization, you can do so.

When your program needs a locale-specific object, it loads the ResourceBundle class using the getBundle method:

 ResourceBundle myResources =
      ResourceBundle.getBundle("MyResources", currentLocale);
 

Resource bundles contain key/value pairs. The keys uniquely identify a locale-specific object in the bundle. Keys are always Strings. The values can be any type of object. You retrieve an object from resource bundle using the appropriate getter method. The getter methods all require the key as an argument and return the object if found. If the object is not found, the getter method throws a MissingResourceException.

The J2ME platform provides two subclasses of ResourceBundle, ListResourceBundle and PropertyResourceBundle, that provide a fairly simple way to create resources. ListResourceBundle manages its resource as a List of key/value pairs. PropertyResourceBundle uses a properties file to manage its resources.

If ListResourceBundle or PropertyResourceBundle do not suit your needs, you can write your own ResourceBundle subclass. Your subclasses must override two methods: handleGetObject and getKeys().

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© Copyright 2003 Motorola, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

See Also:

ListResourceBundle, PropertyResourceBundle, MissingResourceException

Constructor Summary

ResourceBundle()
Sole constructor.

Method Summary

static ResourceBundle	getBundle(String baseName) Gets a resource bundle using the specified base name, the default locale.
static ResourceBundle	getBundle(String baseName, Locale locale) Gets a resource bundle using the specified base name and locale.
abstract Enumeration	getKeys() Returns an enumeration of the keys.
Locale	getLocale() Returns the locale of this resource bundle.
Object	getObject(String key) Gets an object for the given key from this resource bundle or one of its parents.
String	getString(String key) Gets a string for the given key from this resource bundle or one of its parents.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

equals, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

ResourceBundle

public ResourceBundle()

Sole constructor. (For invocation by subclass constructors, typically implicit.)

Method Detail

getString

public final String getString(String key)

Gets a string for the given key from this resource bundle or one of its parents. Calling this method is equivalent to calling

(String) getObject(key).

Parameters:

key - the key for the desired string

Returns:

the string for the given key

Throws:

NullPointerException - if key is null

MissingResourceException - if no object for the given key can be found

getObject

public final Object getObject(String key)

Gets an object for the given key from this resource bundle or one of its parents. This method first tries to obtain the object from this resource bundle using handleGetObject. If not successful, and the parent resource bundle is not null, it calls the parent's getObject method. If still not successful, it throws a MissingResourceException.

Parameters:

key - the key for the desired object

Returns:

the object for the given key

Throws:

NullPointerException - if key is null

MissingResourceException - if no object for the given key can be found

getLocale

public Locale getLocale()

Returns the locale of this resource bundle. This method can be used after a call to getBundle() to determine whether the resource bundle returned really corresponds to the requested locale or is a fallback.

Returns:

the locale of this resource bundle

getBundle

public static final ResourceBundle getBundle(String baseName)

Gets a resource bundle using the specified base name, the default locale. Calling this method is equivalent to calling

getBundle(baseName, Locale.getDefault()).

See getBundle for a complete description of the search and instantiation strategy.

Parameters:

baseName - the base name of the resource bundle, a fully qualified class name

Returns:

a resource bundle for the given base name and the default locale

Throws:

NullPointerException - if baseName is null

MissingResourceException - if no resource bundle for the specified base name can be found

getBundle

public static final ResourceBundle getBundle(String baseName,
                                             Locale locale)

Gets a resource bundle using the specified base name and locale. Calling this method is equivalent to calling

getBundle(baseName, locale).

See getBundle for a complete description of the search and instantiation strategy.

Parameters:

baseName - the base name of the resource bundle, a fully qualified class name

locale - the locale for which a resource bundle is desired

Returns:

a resource bundle for the given base name and locale

Throws:

NullPointerException - if baseName or locale is null

MissingResourceException - if no resource bundle for the specified base name can be found

getKeys

public abstract Enumeration getKeys()

Returns an enumeration of the keys.