What is the best way to associate error messages with error codes in C#?

Question

I have a piece of software written in C#.NET that communicates with a device via USB. When a problem occurs the device sets an error code which is read by my software in the form of an integer. I want to store error messages in my C# program that correlate with the specific firmware error codes. What is the best way to store these?

I have been told that a good approach would be to use a Resource file. What are the benefits of using a resource file? Is there a better way to do it?

Answer 1

I would suggest using a Resource File as well. One key benefit is localization (using different languages). Even if you don't want to use multiple languages today, you give yourself the flexibility to add them later. Another benefit is the simple .NET/c# integration.

var key = "134"; //error code
var resourceFile = "someFileName.resx";
var filePath = "c:\some\path\";
ResourceManager resourceManager = ResourceManager
    .CreateFileBasedResourceManager(resourceFile, filePath, null);
resourceValue = resourceManager.GetString(key);

Also, resource files are easy to get to when it comes time to change a message.

Answer 2

The answer depends on your needs. Will the error message for a specific ever need to be updated? Will you need the ability to add new error code/message pairs dynamically? Will you need to localize the error messages?

The simplest method is just to hard the error code/message values using an IDictionary. That would mean that any updates would require you to recompile and redeploy your application.

Resource files would be another option. In this instance, you'd store the code/message pairs in the resource file, and your application would use the error code as the key to find the appropriate error message value. This would allow you to dynamically add code/message pairs and would make it easy to localize by creating a separate resource file for each language you need to support.

A third option, similar to the second, would be to store the error code/message pairs in a database table. Your application is, most likely, already talking to a database, so this may be a simpler option than resource files, at least from a deployment aspect. This would make localization more difficult, though.

If it were me, I would choose resource files if I thought there would be a need to localize in the future, and the database if I didn't.