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I have seen several conflicting tables that show localizations and what names they should take

A lot of them suggest that there are versions of the language for each country, which is fine, for languages like English, Spanish and Chinese, where I can choose to make a values-en folder or a values-en_US folder if I want to make it more specific

but some other languages like greek have a locale name el_GR , can I just make a folder names values-el or does it HAVE to be values-el_GR

thats just an example and I don't trust the tables I have read, and the android developer guide does not nearly list the available locales

CQM
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3 Answers3

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The folder name of Android string files is formatted as the following:

  • without region variant: values-[locale]
  • with region variant: values-[locale]-r[region]
  • For example: values-en, values-en-rGB, values-el-rGR.

In your case, you just need to create a folder values-el for the Greek translation, and values-el-rGR for the country-specific Greek translation.

Also, you can make use of the resources fallback mechanism in Android, to allow particular strings to be further translated locally.

For example, suppose you have a string called “R.string.title” and the locale is ‘el-GR’, Android will look for a value of “R.string.title” by searching the files in the following order:

  • res/values-el-rGR/strings.xml
  • res/values-el/strings.xml
  • res/values/strings.xml

Therefore, you can just put the country-specific translation inside the res/values-el-rGR/strings.xml, and let the res/values-el/strings.xml stores the general translations.

It can avoid duplicating your strings in different language files by utilizing this fallback mechanism.

Cowcow02
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  • Thanks for the tips. I tried Custom Locale with Android Emulator it doesn't see the region folders. I changed emulator language and everything is fine. Don't trust emulator Custom Locale function guys. – emresancaktar Apr 24 '17 at 14:03
  • So is it possible to just have, say, `values-en` without default `values`? I'm having to deal with duplicate strings and I think it's be to just have `values-en`. What do you think? – TheRealChx101 Sep 14 '19 at 12:44
5

Right click "res" folder in your project. Pick > New > Android resource file > Localization - and it will offer you all the possible Language and Locales options and even create required folders.

careful7j
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0

all can find in https://developer.android.com/index.html

  1. in https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/providing-resources.html#AlternativeResources

the page descript multiple resouce define, like drawable , value

  1. in https://developer.android.com/training/basics/supporting-devices/languages.html

the page provide Language res define， it‘s import How Create Locale Directories and Resource Files .

the format is <resource type>-b+<language code>[+<country code>].

and the language code country code reference https://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/Locale.html

language ISO 639 alpha-2 or alpha-3 language code, or registered language subtags up to 8 alpha letters (for future enhancements). When a language has both an alpha-2 code and an alpha-3 code, the alpha-2 code must be used. You can find a full list of valid language codes in the IANA Language Subtag Registry (search for "Type: language"). https://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/language-subtag-registry

country (region) ISO 3166 alpha-2 country code or UN M.49 numeric-3 area code. You can find a full list of valid country and region codes in the IANA Language Subtag Registry (search for "Type: region").

https://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/language-subtag-registry

Other reference： https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2

Bill
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