How to override default System.Resources.ResourceM

Question

I want to override System.Resources.ResourceManager from Resources.Designer.cs file to achieve custom ResourceManager.GetString(...) method functionality. Is this possible?

Answer 1

I created a CustomResourceManager that overrides the GetString() calls like so:

public class CustomResourceManager : ResourceManager
{
    public CustomResourceManager(Type resourceSource)
        :base(resourceSource)
    {
    }

    public CustomResourceManager(string baseName, Assembly assembly)
        : base(baseName, assembly)
    {
    }

    public CustomResourceManager(string baseName, Assembly assembly, Type usingResourceSet)
        : base(baseName, assembly, usingResourceSet)
    {
    }

    public override string GetString(string name)
    {
        // your business logic
    }

    public override string GetString(string name, CultureInfo culture)
    {
        // your business logic
    }
}

Then I added a pre-build step to my project to replace the creation of a System.Resources.ResourceManager with my CustomResourceManager in the generated Resource.Designer.cs file:

powershell -command "(gc ..\Resources\Resource.Designer.cs).Replace(\"new global::System.Resources.ResourceManager\", \"new CustomResourceManager\") | set-content ..\Resources\Resource.Designer.cs -Encoding UTF8"

And away we go!

Answer 2

I believe you're asking two separate questions here. You can certainly override ResourceManager.GetString. You can't, however, use that override in the auto-generated Resource.Designer.cs code. To use it, you'll have to write your own Resource designer class.

public class MyResourceManager : System.Resources.ResourceManager
  {
    // override
    public override GetString(string name)
      {
        // custom code 
      }
  }

 public class MyResourceDesigner
   {
      // use your custom class with override
      private static MyResourceManager resourceManager;
      private static CultureInfo resourceCulture;

      public static MyResourceManager ResourceManager
         {
            if (object.ReferenceEquals(resourceManager, null))
               {
                  // Resource is just the name of the .resx file
                  // be sure to include relevant namespaces
                  var temp = new MyResourceManager(
                     "MyProject.Resource", 
                     typeof(MyResourceDesigner).Assembly);
                  resourceManager = temp;
               }

            return resourceManager;
         }

      public static CultureInfo Culture
      {
         get
         {
            return resourceCulture;
         }

         set
         {
            resourceCulture = value;
         }
      }

      // start adding strongly-typed objects
      public static string Foo
      {
         get
         {
            // use your override
            return ResourceManager.GetString("Foo", resourceCulture);
         }
      }
  }