Read EXE and Language Resource Files Language ID

[BastianTeufel-GTR]

Is there a way (function) to read the applications Language ID (if set in the compiler file attributes)?
It would be good for manual localization to be able to check in which language the GUI was created directly inside the code, to decide if looking for a translation file is necessary.

In addition I'd like to know if it's possible to read a language file just as is to check its header also for the language ID, locale name, etc.
This would also simplify the process of manual translation.

Thanks in advance

[andersmelander]

Is there a way (function) to read the applications Language ID (if set in the compiler file attributes)?

I assume you mean the Application->Version Info->Language value in the project options?
To my knowledge, the only place that is used and stored is in the generated VersionInfo resource:

You can use the usual functions to read that information (e.g. my amVersionInfo unit). Let me know if you need help with that.

In addition I'd like to know if it's possible to read a language file just as is to check its header also for the language ID, locale name, etc.

I assume that by language file you mean the generated language modules. The language modules does not contain any information, apart from the file type, that indicate what language they contain.
If you have chosen to add a version info resource to them then they will contain the exact same version info as the exe-file - including whatever language info that contains so the version info cannot be used in this case.

If you meant the translation project file, then it's just an XML file and you can find a list of the locale IDs inside:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xlat>
...
  <project sourcefile=".\Win32\Debug\HelloWorld.exe" stringsymbolfile=".\HelloWorld.drc" language="1033" properties="45">
    <targetlanguages>
      <language language="1030" translated="26"/>
      <language language="3073" translated="26"/>
      <language language="1031" translated="26"/>
    </targetlanguages>
...

[BastianTeufel-GTR]

Thanks for the detailed answer, I tried to look up the "Native language" of an executable as defined on the build settings screen as shown above.

With the help of the German DP Forum I found two function to read this information. Using this information I can decide if I need to load an external resource for a specific language.
We often need to be able to set the language independent of the OS language.
So when e.g. my program is natively written with German texts, the target OS is English but the operator wants the program to be in french
I look up the native language, available translations and the OS language. Then I decide which resource to load.

[andersmelander]

That is basically what the HelloWorld example does.
I have just pushed an update to it so it now uses the VersionInfo resource to determine the native application language.