Keeping i18n resources synced

Question

I am looking for an editor/comparator for i18n property files that would help me keep different language files in sync.

Basically, something that would compare a bunch a of property files and show which keys are not present in a particular language.

a property would look something like

component.titlepage.title = hello world

A simple diff is not possible since the right-hand-side will be different from a language to another.

Our current infrastructure:

• Java application
• Built using maven2
• Different i18n property files for different components of the system. (1 property file per language per component)

Answer 1

The Checkstyle tool, which I typically run as part of every continuous integration build which is done after every check-in to the main branch, will tell you if any given set of properties files has an inconsistent set of properties. When I first started using Checkstyle, I indeed found that a few of my properties files were missing a small number of properties.

This won't help on the editor end, but it will help you efficiently identify any gaps.

Answer 2

If you are using Eclipse, I find the ResourceBundle Editor plugin very handy. You can edit several properties files at the same time and you have warnings when a key is missing in one of the files.