Localization of DisplayNameAttribute

Question

There is the Display attribute from System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations in .NET 4. It works on the MVC 3 PropertyGrid.

[Display(ResourceType = typeof(MyResources), Name = "UserName")]
public string UserName { get; set; }

This looks up a resource named UserName in your MyResources .resx file.

We are doing this for a number of attributes in order to support multiple language. We have taken a similar approach to Microsoft, where they override their base attributes and pass a resource name rather than the actual string. The resource name is then used to perform a lookup in the DLL resources for the actual string to return.

For example:

class LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute : DisplayNameAttribute
{
    private readonly string resourceName;
    public LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute(string resourceName)
        : base()
    {
      this.resourceName = resourceName;
    }

    public override string DisplayName
    {
        get
        {
            return Resources.ResourceManager.GetString(this.resourceName);
        }
    }
}

You can take this a step further when actually using the attribute, and specify your resource names as constants in a static class. That way, you get declarations like.

[LocalizedDisplayName(ResourceStrings.MyPropertyName)]
public string MyProperty
{
  get
  {
    ...
  }
}

Update
ResourceStrings would look something like (note, each string would refer to the name of a resource that specifies the actual string):

public static class ResourceStrings
{
    public const string ForegroundColorDisplayName="ForegroundColorDisplayName";
    public const string FontSizeDisplayName="FontSizeDisplayName";
}

Here is the solution I ended up with in a separate assembly (called "Common" in my case):

   [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method | AttributeTargets.Property | AttributeTargets.Event)]
   public class DisplayNameLocalizedAttribute : DisplayNameAttribute
   {
      public DisplayNameLocalizedAttribute(Type resourceManagerProvider, string resourceKey)
         : base(Utils.LookupResource(resourceManagerProvider, resourceKey))
      {
      }
   }

with the code to look up the resource:

  internal static string LookupResource(Type resourceManagerProvider, string resourceKey)
  {
     foreach (PropertyInfo staticProperty in  resourceManagerProvider.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic))
     {
        if (staticProperty.PropertyType == typeof(System.Resources.ResourceManager))
        {
           System.Resources.ResourceManager resourceManager = (System.Resources.ResourceManager)staticProperty.GetValue(null, null);
           return resourceManager.GetString(resourceKey);
        }
     }

     return resourceKey; // Fallback with the key name
  }

Typical usage would be:

class Foo
{
      [Common.DisplayNameLocalized(typeof(Resources.Resource), "CreationDateDisplayName"),
      Common.DescriptionLocalized(typeof(Resources.Resource), "CreationDateDescription")]
      public DateTime CreationDate
      {
         get;
         set;
      }
}

What is pretty much ugly as I use literal strings for resource key. Using a constant there would mean to modify Resources.Designer.cs which is probably not a good idea.

Conclusion: I am not happy with that, but I am even less happy about Microsoft who can't provide anything useful for such a common task.

Using the Display attribute (from System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations) and the nameof() expression in C# 6, you'll get a localized and strongly typed solution.

[Display(ResourceType = typeof(MyResources), Name = nameof(MyResources.UserName))]
public string UserName { get; set; }

You could use T4 to generate constants. I wrote one:

<#@ template debug="false" hostspecific="true" language="C#" #>
<#@ output extension=".cs" #>
<#@ assembly name="System.Xml.dll" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Xml" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Xml.XPath" #>
using System;
using System.ComponentModel;


namespace Bear.Client
{
 /// <summary>
 /// Localized display name attribute
 /// </summary>
 public class LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute : DisplayNameAttribute
 {
  readonly string _resourceName;

  /// <summary>
  /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute"/> class.
  /// </summary>
  /// <param name="resourceName">Name of the resource.</param>
  public LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute(string resourceName)
   : base()
  {
   _resourceName = resourceName;
  }

  /// <summary>
  /// Gets the display name for a property, event, or public void method that takes no arguments stored in this attribute.
  /// </summary>
  /// <value></value>
  /// <returns>
  /// The display name.
  /// </returns>
  public override String DisplayName
  {
   get
   {
    return Resources.ResourceManager.GetString(this._resourceName);
   }
  }
 }

 partial class Constants
 {
  public partial class Resources
  {
  <# 
   var reader = XmlReader.Create(Host.ResolvePath("resources.resx"));
   var document = new XPathDocument(reader);
   var navigator = document.CreateNavigator();
   var dataNav = navigator.Select("/root/data");
   foreach (XPathNavigator item in dataNav)
   {
    var name = item.GetAttribute("name", String.Empty);
  #>
   public const String <#= name#> = "<#= name#>";
  <# } #>
  }
 }
}

This is an old question, but I think this is a very common problem, and here is my solution in MVC 3.

Firstly, a T4 template is needed to generate constants to avoid nasty strings. We have a resource file ‘Labels.resx’ holds all the label strings. Therefore the T4 template uses the resource file directly,

<#@ template debug="True" hostspecific="True" language="C#" #>
<#@ output extension=".cs" #>
<#@ Assembly Name="C:\Project\trunk\Resources\bin\Development\Resources.dll" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections.Generic" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Globalization" #>
<#@ import namespace="System" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Resources" #>
<#
  var resourceStrings = new List<string>();
  var manager = Resources.Labels.ResourceManager;

  IDictionaryEnumerator enumerator = manager.GetResourceSet(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture,  true, true)
                                             .GetEnumerator();
  while (enumerator.MoveNext())
  {
        resourceStrings.Add(enumerator.Key.ToString());
  }
#>     

// This file is generated automatically. Do NOT modify any content inside.

namespace Lib.Const{
        public static class LabelNames{
<#
            foreach (String label in resourceStrings){
#>                    
              public const string <#=label#> =     "<#=label#>";                    
<#
           }    
#>
    }
}

Then, an extension method get created to localize the ‘DisplayName’,

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using Resources;

namespace Web.Extensions.ValidationAttributes
{
    public static class ValidationAttributeHelper
    {
        public static ValidationContext LocalizeDisplayName(this ValidationContext    context)
        {
            context.DisplayName = Labels.ResourceManager.GetString(context.DisplayName) ?? context.DisplayName;
            return context;
        }
    }
}

‘DisplayName’ attribute is replaced by ‘DisplayLabel’ attribute in order to read from ‘Labels.resx’ automatically,

namespace Web.Extensions.ValidationAttributes
{

    public class DisplayLabelAttribute :System.ComponentModel.DisplayNameAttribute
    {
        private readonly string _propertyLabel;

        public DisplayLabelAttribute(string propertyLabel)
        {
            _propertyLabel = propertyLabel;
        }

        public override string DisplayName
        {
            get
            {
                return _propertyLabel;
            }
        }
    }
}

After all those preparation work, time to touch those default validation attributes. I am using ‘Required’ attribute as an example,

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using Resources;

namespace Web.Extensions.ValidationAttributes
{
    public class RequiredAttribute : System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.RequiredAttribute
    {
        public RequiredAttribute()
        {
          ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof (Errors);
          ErrorMessageResourceName = "Required";
        }

        protected override ValidationResult IsValid(object value, ValidationContext  validationContext)
        {
            return base.IsValid(value, validationContext.LocalizeDisplayName());
        }

    }
}

Now, We can apply those attributes in our model,

using Web.Extensions.ValidationAttributes;

namespace Web.Areas.Foo.Models
{
    public class Person
    {
        [DisplayLabel(Lib.Const.LabelNames.HowOldAreYou)]
        public int Age { get; set; }

        [Required]
        public string Name { get; set; }
    }
}

By default, property name is used as the key to look up ‘Label.resx’, but if you set it through ‘DisplayLabel’, it will use that instead.

You can subclass DisplayNameAttribute to provide i18n, by overriding one of the methods. Like so. edit: You might have to settle for using a constant for the key.

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;

class Foo {
    [MyDisplayName("bar")] // perhaps use a constant: SomeType.SomeResName
    public string Bar {get; set; }
}

public class MyDisplayNameAttribute : DisplayNameAttribute {
    public MyDisplayNameAttribute(string key) : base(Lookup(key)) {}

    static string Lookup(string key) {
        try {
            // get from your resx or whatever
            return "le bar";
        } catch {
            return key; // fallback
        }
    }
}

class Program {
    [STAThread]
    static void Main() {
        Application.Run(new Form { Controls = {
            new PropertyGrid { SelectedObject =
                new Foo { Bar = "abc" } } } });
    }
}