Lightweight alternative to Java's ResourceBundle?

Question

In some projects, I use the classical ResourceBundle mechanism to grab locale-dependent messages (exception messages, informational messages, whatever).

But I have a few problems with it:

• it is too "heavyweight" for my tastes; for instance, while I only need strings, a ResourceBundle can return an Object;
• handling of non existing keys is poor (unchecked exception instead of returning the key itself);
• you can stack bundles, however not in the way I'd like (adding a parent using .setParent() does not make the parent searched first, but the child).

I know code can be written to overcome the two latter points; however, if there is a library out there for handling messages in a more simple way, it would be even better! Do you know of one?

Alongside

I am using NLS from Eclipse, It's very lightweight and I think it servers your purpose. – Assoil

@PradeepSimha a quick Google search for Maven artifacts shows that it is part of artifacts providing OSGi capabilities... Is there a more lightweight version than the ones I've found so far? – Alongside

Answer 1

You could use GetText (link), take a look!

c10n is an interesting project too (link).

Piece

Uh, it requires GNU gettext installed :/ – Alongside

Answer 2

Well, answer to self...

I have continued to google around, tried and dug into Eclipse NLS and c10n as suggested, but the "simple" criterion I was looking for was not really there.

I have therefore started my own: msg-simple.

Alongside