Best-practices for localizing a SQL Server (2005/2008) database

Question

Question

I\'m sure many of you have been faced by the challenge of localizing a database backend to an application. If you\'ve not then I\'d be pretty confident in

Answer 1

Here some thoghts on the Rick Strahl's blog:

Localization of database Localization of JavaScript

I do prefer to use a single switch in a UserSetting table , which is used by calling stored procedure ... here some of the code

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Lang_en_US_Msg](
    [MsgId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [MsgKey] [varchar](200) NOT NULL,
    [MsgTxt] [varchar](2000) NOT NULL,
    [MsgDescription] [varchar](2000) NOT NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_Lang_US-us__Msg] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [MsgId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[User](
    [UserId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [FirstName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [MiddleName] [varchar](50) NULL,
    [LastName] [varchar](50) NULL,
    [DomainName] [varchar](50) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_User] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [UserId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[UserSetting](
    [UserSettingId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [UserId] [int] NOT NULL,
    [CultureInfo] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [GuiLanguage] [varchar](10) NOT NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_UserSetting] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [UserSettingId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

GO

 ALTER TABLE [dbo].[UserSetting] ADD  CONSTRAINT [DF_UserSetting_CultureInfo]  DEFAULT ('fi-FI') FOR [CultureInfo]
 GO

 CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Lang_fi_FI_Msg](
    [MsgId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [MsgKey] [varchar](200) NOT NULL,
    [MsgTxt] [varchar](2000) NOT NULL,
    [MsgDescription] [varchar](2000) NOT NULL,
    [DbSysNameForExpansion] [varchar](50) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_Lang_Fi-fi__Msg] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [MsgId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[procGui_GetPageMsgs]
@domainUser varchar(50) ,           -- the domain_user performing the action  
@msgOut varchar(4000) OUT,        -- the (error) msg to be shown to the user   
@debugMsgOut varchar(4000) OUT ,   -- this variable holds the debug msg to be shown if debug level is enabled   
@ret int OUT                  -- the variable indicating success or failure 

AS                            
BEGIN -- proc start                            
 SET NOCOUNT ON;                            

declare @procedureName varchar(200)        
declare @procStep varchar(4000)  


set @procedureName = ( SELECT OBJECT_NAME(@@PROCID))        
set @msgOut = ' '     
set @debugMsgOut = ' '     
set @procStep = ' '     


BEGIN TRY        --begin try                  
set @ret = 1 --assume false from the beginning                  

--===============================================================
 --debug   set @procStep=@procStep + 'GETTING THE GUI LANGUAGE FOR THIS USER '
--===============================================================

declare @guiLanguage nvarchar(10)




if ( @domainUser is null)
    set @guiLanguage = (select Val from AppSetting where Name='guiLanguage')
else 
    set @guiLanguage = (select GuiLanguage from UserSetting us join [User] u on u.UserId = us.UserId where u.DomainName=@domainUser)

set @guiLanguage = REPLACE ( @guiLanguage , '-' , '_' ) ;


--===============================================================
set @procStep=@procStep + ' BUILDING THE SQL QUERY '
--===============================================================

DECLARE @sqlQuery AS nvarchar(2000)
SET @sqlQuery = 'SELECT  MsgKey , MsgTxt FROM dbo.lang_' + @guiLanguage + '_Msg'


--===============================================================
set @procStep=@procStep + 'EXECUTING THE SQL QUERY'
--===============================================================
print @sqlQuery

    exec sp_executesql @sqlQuery

    set @debugMsgOut = @procStep
    set @ret = @@ERROR                  


END TRY        --end try                  

BEGIN CATCH                        
 PRINT 'In CATCH block.                         
 Error number: ' + CAST(ERROR_NUMBER() AS varchar(10)) + '                        
 Error message: ' + ERROR_MESSAGE() + '                        
 Error severity: ' + CAST(ERROR_SEVERITY() AS varchar(10)) + '                        
 Error state: ' + CAST(ERROR_STATE() AS varchar(10)) + '                        
 XACT_STATE: ' + CAST(XACT_STATE() AS varchar(10));                        

set @msgOut = 'Failed to execute ' + @sqlQuery             
set @debugMsgOut = ' Error number: ' + CAST(ERROR_NUMBER() AS varchar(10)) +               
 'Error message: ' + ERROR_MESSAGE() + 'Error severity: ' + CAST(ERROR_SEVERITY() AS varchar(10)) +               
 'Error state: ' + CAST(ERROR_STATE() AS varchar(10)) + 'XACT_STATE: ' + CAST(XACT_STATE() AS varchar(10))                        

--record the error in the database                        
--debug    
 --EXEC [dbo].[procUtils_DebugDb]
    --  @DomainUser = @domainUser,
    --  @debugmsg = @debugMsgOut,
    --  @ret = 1,
    --  @procedureName = @procedureName ,
    --  @procedureStep = @procStep

 -- set @ret = 1                       

END CATCH                        


return  @ret                                   
END --procedure end