Localize a dynamically binding DropDownList in ASP.NET

Question

I have a dropdownlist which binds with a database table 'countries'
The dropdownlist takes column countryname as its datatextfield and countrycode as datavaluefield.
Suppose this table has 3 entries which have respective column values as given below.

India , IN
Germany , DE
America , US

and I am changing the culture to de-DE
I know to use resx file for a single static text. Now, how can I localize the multiple datatextfield items to de-DE simultaneously??

Answer 1

To do this you need to join the collection of table rows with the values from the resource file on the value, then pack the data into a custom type to which you'll bind the DropDownList. So:

var tableRows = table.Rows.Cast<DataRow>();
var resourceStrings = YourResourceClass.ResourceManager
        .GetResourceSet(culture: CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture,
            createIfNotExists: false,
            tryParents: true)
        .Cast<DictionaryEntry>();

var data = tableRows
        .Join(resourceStrings,
            row => row["countrycode"].ToString(),
            resource => resource.Key,
            (row, resource) => new KeyValuePair<string, string>(
                row["countrycode"].ToString(),
                resource.Value.ToString()))
        .ToArray();

Now, change binding properties of your DropDownList to:

ddl.DataTextField = "Value";
ddl.DataValueField = "Key";

And bind the datasource:

ddl.DataSource = data;

EDIT

To achieve the same result without using LINQ you'll need to load the resources into a dictionary and then iterate over the counties table to build the data source; something like this:

var resources = new Dictionary<string,string>();
var resourceSet = YourResourceClass.ResourceManager.GetResourceSet(
    CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture, false, true);
foreach(DictionaryEntry kvp in resourceSet)
{
    resources[kvp.Key] = kvp.Value.ToString();
}

var dataSource = new List<KeyValuePair<string, string>>();
foreach(DataRow in table.Rows)
{
    var countryCode = row["countrycode"].ToString();
    if(resources.ContainsKey(countryCode))
    {
        dataSource.Add(new KeyValuePair<string, string>(
            countryCode,
            resources[contryCode]));
    }
}

Next, bind the dataSource to your DropDownList and you're all set!