Thomas Much's Weblog

Exclude Certain Message-Resource Keys From Struts Localization

While Struts isn't the latest, coolest Java web framework, it certainly is one of the most widely used ones. And it has proven to be solid and reliable in many, many projects. However, once in a while you need some feature that even a framework with some years of history does not offer out-of-the-box. Fortunately, Struts can be extended easily.

For a Struts & Common Controls project I needed the possibility to exclude some message-resource keys from localization, because the "key" strings were loaded from a database and had to be used literally. Most of the keys had to be looked up (i.e. localized) from the resource bundle, still.

In the end I decided to write my own, small MessageResourcesFactory that simply does not localize keys that start with the prefix "nokey!". Instead, such key strings are returned literally (without the "nokey!" prefix).

If you happen to need something similar, download the small archive here (provided "as is" without any warranties, use it at your own risk!) and activate the new MessageResourcesFactory in your struts-config.xml as follows:

<message-resources factory="de.snailshell.struts.MessageResourcesFactory" parameter="MyResources" null="false" />

[Update] Not really well documented... But from Common Controls 1.6 on you can exclude any resource key from localization by simply adding a "#" prefix. I'm not sure if I like the "#", though, because it might get in conflict with EL variables from the Unified Expression Language. So I think I'll stick with the "nokey!" prefix.