Locale and message.properties issue

[ulff]

I have a simple Spring MVC webapp supporting both norwegian and english users. Thus I have two message files (message_en.properties and message.properties) in the WEB-INF/classes directory. The "clients" of my app are including the my app by using iframe tag. The plan is to manage language by passing a request parameter named "locale" like this:

http://someserver/list.htm?locale=en or
http://someserver/list.htm?locale=no

How can I load the proper message.properties file, by testing on the locale request parameter? I have tried to set the locale in my spring controller, but I guess I do something wrong.

Any thoughts?

[Simon Brunning]

Are you using the JSTL format taglib? Doesn't the locale come from the user's browser locale settings?

[ulff]

Yes, I use the JSTL fmt tag.
<fmt:message key="list.title" />

I would like to set the locale based on a request parameter (comes from an hardcoded iframe url), and not from the user's browser.

I did a quick test, and put this code in my controller:

ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource msgSrc = 
    new ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource();
String s = msgSrc.getMessage("list.title", null, new Locale("en"));
logger.debug("english: " + s);
s = msgSrc.getMessage("list.title", null, new Locale("no"));
logger.debug("norwegian: " + s);

and this hardcoding approach works.

My problem is; How do I set locale on a request so the jstl fmt tag display text from the correct application.properties file.

[Simon Brunning]

Ah - so you want to override the browser settings.

Well, it's pretty nasty, but IIRC there's a format tag to set the locale explicifly. You could have a bunch of these in a c:choose block...

[ulff]

Hmm, when I read the jstl doc it was pretty obvious...

<fmt:setLocale value="${param.locale}" scope="request" />

Thanks Simon!