Ralph Goers wrote:
This is fragile as it will break if someone uses a different charset than what is now hardcoded in the software. This information should be obtained from the file itself.
True. However, once the encoding for a given translation is established, it won't change frequently. So it should be more or less acceptable to hard code it in the enum. This does not mean that your suggestion to place the encoding information in the file is not a good one. It's not so easy to accomplish however. To correctly interpret the encoding information contained in the file, you have to open it with the correct charset... the chicken or the egg?
but the compiler forbids multiple instances of the same annotation.
Can you think of a more elegant approach which still allows the user to designate the charset for a given locale?
Yes. At the risk of repeating myself, build your framework using XML files and let the XML parser use the encoding specified in the file. Property files were not designed for this. If you insist on using ResourceBundles then require Java 6 and use XML prooperty files and ResourceBundle.Control as described at http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/ResourceBundle.Control.html in Example 2.
XML files are necessarily more verbose than property files. Also note that a large number of shops do their localization using property files. I will now go read ResourceBundle.Control.
Ralph
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