How to share locale independent properties among several ResourceBundles? - spring

Question

Scenario: In the application I have language-dependent property files which are used as templates to generate emails:
email-subscription_en.properties:
email.subject=You are successfully subscribed to list {0}
email.body=...
email-cancellation_en.properties:
email.subject=You are successfully unsubscribed from list {0}
email.body=...
and so on. Now in Spring context I would like to have these bundles:
<bean id="subscriptionMailProperties" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basename" value="org.company.email-subscription" />
</bean>
<bean id="cancellationMailProperties" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basename" value="org.company.email-cancellation" />
</bean>
be merged with these common language-independent properties which I would like to be declared in context:
<util:properties id="commonMailProperties">
<prop key="email.from">noreply#company.org</prop>
<prop key="email.to">{0}#company.org</prop>
</util:properties>
How is it possible?

Answer 1

As far as I know there is no support for this. You are trying to mix configuration with resource bundles. I feel what you currently have is right. If you do not have luxury of keeping it as it is, here is a way(more of a hack)
Implement org.springframework.context.MessageSource with 'commonMailProperties'(java.util.Properties) as dependency and say the bean id as 'commonMessageSource'.
In 'getMessage' implementations get the value from 'commonMailProperties'.
Inject 'commonMessageSource' to 'subscriptionMailProperties' and 'cancellationMailProperties', for 'parentMessageSource' property.

Answer 2

If somebody got interested in complete solution:
Create class PropertiesMessageSource:
/**
* {#link org.springframework.context.MessageSource} implementation that resolves messages via underlying
* {#link Properties}.
*/
public class PropertiesMessageSource extends AbstractMessageSource {
private Properties properties;
/**
* Set properties to use.
*/
public void setProperties(Properties properties) {
this.properties = properties;
}
#Override
protected MessageFormat resolveCode(String code, Locale locale) {
String property = properties.getProperty(code);
if (property == null) {
return null;
}
return createMessageFormat(property, locale);
}
}
Use it:
<bean id="commonMailProperties" class="org.company.PropertiesMessageSource">
<property name="properties">
<props>
<prop key="email.from">noreply#company.org</prop>
<prop key="email.to">{0}#company.org</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
<bean id="subscriptionMailProperties" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basename" value="org.company.email-subscription" />
<property name="parentMessageSource">
<ref bean="commonMailProperties"/>
</property>
</bean>

Answer 3

ResourceBundleMessageSource (more exactly: all descendants of AbstractMessageSource) now has commonMessages property which can hold locale-independent values. For example while you want to have mail subject and body locale-dependant, some properties (mail from and mail to) are common across all bundles (check SPR-10291):
<bean id="mailProperties" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basename" value="org.mycompany.email" />
<property name="commonMessages">
<props>
<prop key="email.from">empty#mydomain.org</prop>
<prop key="email.to">%s#mydomain.org</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>