语言文件的最佳做法/设计模式

Question

I'm looking for a good way to have multiple translations in an application.

Right now I'm using a class that reads the terms from an ini file. Every term is a variable. For example:

string allowed ;
[...]
allowed = config.readString (sectionName,  "allowed") ;

the good of this solution is that it's light, easy to implement and checked at compile time but it's not flexible enough.

a more flexible solution could be to use an associative array (or similar)

currLang [ "allowed" ]

Does any-one know any best practice or design pattern or would just disclose his personal way of implementing it?

It's also welcome a simple description of the way the well known frameworks implement it.

Answer 1

Well, I don't know a specific pattern for your problem. However, I implemented a few times translation support in different languages. The most common one, and language independent, I've seen is with an array. You load up the array at the startup and use it in your application. Based on the current language setting, you load up in that specific language.

If you want a more dynamic approach, or if it takes too long to read the whole array at startup (or login), check out the Proxy pattern.