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Should Exception Messages be Globalized

Asked 2009-01-23T20:46:24.313
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I'm working on a project and I'm just starting to do all the work necessary to globalize the application. One thing that comes up quite often is whether to globalize the exception messages, but ensuring that string.Format uses CultureInfo.CurrentCulture instead of CultureInfo.InvariantCulture. Additionally this would mean that exception messages would be stored in resource files that can be marked as culture-specific.

So the question is, should exception messages be globalized or should be be left in either the InvariantCulture or the author's country; in my case en-US.

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I assume by globalize, you mean i18n compliant which is usually called internationalize. Yes, internationalize all visible parts of the GUI, including diagnostic messages. The log file, which is where developers should go to get the real information such as the stack trace, should not be internationalized.

answered 2009-01-23T20:55:27.273

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