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      1 page.title=Supporting Different Languages
      2 parent.title=Supporting Different Devices
      3 parent.link=index.html
      4 
      5 trainingnavtop=true
      6 next.title=Supporting Different Screens
      7 next.link=screens.html
      8 
      9 @jd:body
     10 
     11 
     12 <div id="tb-wrapper">
     13   <div id="tb">
     14     <h2>This class teaches you to</h2>
     15     <ol>
     16       <li><a href="#CreateDirs">Create Locale Directories and String Files</a></li>
     17       <li><a href="#UseString">Use the String Resources</a></li>
     18     </ol>
     19     <h2>You should also read</h2>
     20     <ul>
     21       <li><a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/resources/localization.html">Localization</a></li>
     22     </ul>
     23   </div>
     24 </div>
     25 
     26 <p>Its always a good practice to extract UI strings from your app code and keep them
     27 in an external file.  Android makes this easy with a resources directory in each Android
     28 project.</p>
     29 
     30 <p>If you created your project using the Android SDK
     31 Tools (read <a href="{@docRoot}training/basics/firstapp/creating-project.html">Creating an
     32 Android Project</a>), the tools create a <code>res/</code> directory in the top level of
     33 the project. Within this <code>res/</code> directory are subdirectories for various resource
     34 types. There are also a few default files such as <code>res/values/strings.xml</code>, which holds
     35 your string values.</p>
     36 
     37 
     38 <h2 id="CreateDirs">Create Locale Directories and String Files</h2> 
     39 
     40 <p>To add support for more languages, create additional <code>values</code> directories inside
     41 <code>res/</code> that include a hyphen and the ISO country code at the end of the
     42 directory name. For example, <code>values-es/</code> is the directory containing simple
     43 resourcess for the Locales with the language code "es".  Android loads the appropriate resources
     44 according to the locale settings of the device at run time.</p>
     45 
     46 <p>Once youve decided on the languages you will support, create the resource subdirectories and
     47 string resource files. For example:</p>
     48 
     49 <pre class="classic no-pretty-print">
     50 MyProject/
     51     res/
     52        values/
     53            strings.xml
     54        values-es/
     55            strings.xml
     56        values-fr/
     57            strings.xml
     58 </pre>
     59 
     60 <p>Add the string values for each locale into the appropriate file.</p>
     61 
     62 <p>At runtime, the Android system uses the appropriate set of string resources based on the
     63 locale currently set for the user's device.</p>
     64   
     65 <p>For example, the following are some different string resource files for different languages.</p>
     66 
     67 
     68 <p>English (default locale), <code>/values/strings.xml</code>:</p>
     69 
     70 <pre>
     71 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
     72 &lt;resources>
     73     &lt;string name="title">My Application&lt;/string>
     74     &lt;string name="hello_world">Hello World!&lt;/string>
     75 &lt;/resources>
     76 </pre>
     77 
     78 
     79 <p>Spanish, <code>/values-es/strings.xml</code>:</p>
     80 
     81 <pre>
     82 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
     83 &lt;resources>
     84     &lt;string name="title">Mi Aplicacin&lt;/string>
     85     &lt;string name="hello_world">Hola Mundo!&lt;/string>
     86 &lt;/resources>
     87 </pre>
     88 
     89 
     90 <p>French, <code>/values-fr/strings.xml</code>:</p>
     91 
     92 <pre>
     93 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
     94 &lt;resources>
     95     &lt;string name="title">Mon Application&lt;/string>
     96     &lt;string name="hello_world">Bonjour le monde !&lt;/string>
     97 &lt;/resources>
     98 </pre>
     99 
    100 <p class="note"><strong>Note:</strong> You can use the locale qualifier (or any
    101 configuration qualifer) on any resource type, such as if you want to provide
    102 localized versions of your bitmap drawable. For more information, see <a
    103 href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/resources/localization.html">Localization</a>.
    104 
    105 <h2 id="UseString">Use the String Resources</h2>
    106 
    107 <p>You can reference your string resources in your source code and other XML files using the
    108 resource name defined by the {@code &lt;string>} element's {@code name} attribute.</p>
    109 
    110 <p>In your source code, you can refer to a string resource with the syntax {@code
    111 R.string.&lt;string_name>}. There are a variety of methods that accept a string resource this
    112 way.</p>
    113   
    114 <p>For example:</p>
    115 
    116 <pre>
    117 // Get a string resource from your app's {@link android.content.res.Resources}
    118 String hello = {@link android.content.Context#getResources()}.getString(R.string.hello_world);
    119 
    120 // Or supply a string resource to a method that requires a string
    121 TextView textView = new TextView(this);
    122 textView.setText(R.string.hello_world);
    123 </pre>
    124 
    125 <p>In other XML files, you can refer to a string resource with the syntax {@code
    126 &#64;string/&lt;string_name>} whenever the XML attribute accepts a string value.</p>
    127 
    128 <p>For example:</p>
    129 
    130 <pre>
    131 &lt;TextView
    132     android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    133     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    134     android:text="@string/hello_world" />
    135 </pre>
    136 
    137 
    138 
    139