Non-localized strings in android

Question

How do I avoid (some) of my string resources getting localized?

Sometimes I need the same string multiple places. For instance when defining a preference I need the preference key both in my preferences.xml and in my java code in order to get the preference value. Either I can manually define the key twice (which I do now) but I feel that my list of keys is getting large and error prone.

I could also define the key in my strins.xml but then I fear it will get translated (sooner or later (by mistake?)). I fear this could cause problems to have the same preference value store multiple times with different keys. What if the user changes language and all the settings got reset?

Is there a way to define a string - accessible both in code and xml - which will not get translated as a part of the localization process?

Answer 1

In general, if you provide the string only in your default strings.xml it will appear the same on all locales. In addition you can use the "translatable" attribute which will tell Lint that this string is not designed to be translated, and will serve for documentation purposes.

Answer 2

Just use translatable=false . And I suggest putting your preferences keys to separate resource file as it would be easier to manage.

<string name="Key" translatable="false">my key</string>