Localization support, part 3. CRUD operations

In the previous posts we discussed the options for localization implementation on database level & on domain model level. Let’s continue the topic and see how CRUD operations can be applied to localized entities.

Scenarios

Generally, there are two scenarios:

1. In first you deal with localized properties as if they are regular ones and DataObjects.Net does all the other stuff in background. You act as there is no such notion as localization. You simply get and set values to properties as usual. In this case you deal with currently active culture and corresponding localization object. Switching of Thread.CurrentCulture property or localization scope usage are the best ways to do this.

var english = new CultureInfo("en-US");
var russian = new CultureInfo("ru-RU");

var welcomePage = new Page();

// Editing localizable properties through localization scope
using (new LocalizationScope(english)) {
  welcomePage.Title = "Welcome!";
  welcomePage.Content = "My dear guests, welcome to my birthday party!";
}

// Editing localizable properties through CurrentThread.CurrentCulture
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = russian;
welcomePage.Title = "Здравствуйте!";
welcomePage.Content = "Добро пожаловать, дорогие гости! На базаре сейчас всё так дорого.";

Note, code that works with localizable properties, is the same that one that work with any other regular persistent properties.

2. In the second scenario your code knows that some localization takes place and wants to get or update localized properties for several cultures at a time. Say, you edit Page object from website administration system and want to see all available localizations for it. Therefore, you should have the possibility to get them all and to make some changes directly to the chosen ones. The approach with localization scope is not an option for such kind of task.

var goodbyePage = new Page();

// Editing localizations directly
goodbyePage.Localizations[english].Title = "Goodbye!";
goodbyePage.Localizations[english].Content = "Goodbye, my dear friends.";
goodbyePage.Localizations[russian].Title = "До свидания!";
goodbyePage.Localizations[russian].Content = "Надеюсь больше никогда вас не увидеть.";

Both scenarios are supported in the above-mentioned Localization sample and Page instances as well as PageLocalization instances are persisted transparently.

Results

Here are localizations for 2 Page instances:

Note that first 2 columns are key columns. First one is string representation of CultureInfo, and the second on is a reference to localizable object. All other columns are localized versions of properties from Page class.

In the next post we’ll figure out what should be done to use LINQ with localized entities.