How to extract string resources from .NET assemblies?

It’s the fun time of the product cycle where we are - with the exception of a couple of DCRs* – feature complete and preparing to hand over our strings to the Loc team. To make sure that the strings don’t contain literal or grammatical errors the PMs review them together with our technical writers (the guys who write the msdn content). Once that’s done the strings are handed over to the Loc team, get translated and checked back in into our branch.

To find all strings (at least all of which are embedded in resources) I wrote a small WPF program which reflects over our assemblies, extracts the embedded strings and shows them in a grid (from where I can easily copy & paste everything into Excel. If I’d need this functionality more often I’d probably write a small console application instead which I then could reuse in a PowerShell script).

Here is what I did (Stop bothering me, give me a direct download!):

Imports System.Reflection Imports System.Globalization Imports System.Threading Imports System.Linq Imports System.IO Class MainWindow     Private Sub btnOpenFolder_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs) Handles btnOpenFolder.Click         ' Hook up the AssemblyResolve Event - which occurs when the         ' resolution of an assembly fails - to the method AssemblyResolve         ' This is important if your assemblies reference others which are         ' located in a different path and can't be found         ' https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.appdomain.assemblyresolve.aspx         AddHandler AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve, AddressOf AssemblyResolve         ' Extract all the embedded resources from a given path         Dim AssemblyInfos = ExtractResourceFromAssembly(GetFiles(txtPath.Text))         ' and bind the extracted strings to a DataGrid         DataGrid1.AutoGenerateColumns = True         DataGrid1.ItemsSource = AssemblyInfos     End Sub     ''' <summary>     ''' Walks over a path and returns a list of files ending with .dll     ''' </summary>     ''' <param name="path">The path containing the assemblies.</param>     ''' <returns>All list of files ending with .dll</returns>     ''' <remarks></remarks>     Private Function GetFiles(ByVal path As String) As List(Of String)         If path.Length = 0 Then             MessageBox.Show("You have to enter a path.")             Return Nothing         End If         Dim query = From file In My.Computer.FileSystem.GetFiles(path, FileIO.SearchOption.SearchAllSubDirectories)                     Where (file.EndsWith(".dll"))                     Order By file         Return query.ToList     End Function     ''' <summary>     ''' Extracts all string resources from a list of assemblies and returns them as a list of AssemblyInfo-Objects holding the extracted strings.     ''' </summary>     ''' <param name="fileNames">The list of assemblies.</param>     ''' <returns>A List of AssemblyInfo-Objects holding the extracted strings.</returns>     ''' <remarks></remarks>     Private Function ExtractResourceFromAssembly(ByVal fileNames As List(Of String)) As List(Of AssemblyInfo)         Dim ci As CultureInfo = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture         Dim assemblyInfos As New List(Of AssemblyInfo)         Dim rm As System.Resources.ResourceManager         For Each file In fileNames             ' Load the assembly             Dim _assembly = Assembly.LoadFrom(file)             ' Retrieve all the resources ending with ".resources"             Dim _resourceNames = _assembly.GetManifestResourceNames.Where(Function(n) n.EndsWith(".resources"))             For Each resourceName In _resourceNames                 ' remove the ".resources" from the end of the string                 resourceName = resourceName.Remove(resourceName.Length - ".resources".Length, ".resources".Length)                 ' create the respective ResourceManager                 Try                  rm = New System.Resources.ResourceManager(resourceName, _assembly)                     ' and get the the ResourceSet                     Dim resourceSet = rm.GetResourceSet(ci, True, False)                     If resourceSet IsNot Nothing Then                         Dim id As IDictionaryEnumerator = resourceSet.GetEnumerator()                         While id.MoveNext()                             If id.Value.GetType.ToString = "System.String" Then                                 assemblyInfos.Add(                                         New AssemblyInfo With {                                             .Path = file,                                             .Assembly = _assembly.ManifestModule.ScopeName,                                             .Resource = resourceName,                                             .Name = id.Key.ToString,                                             .Value = id.Value.ToString}                                     )                             End If                         End While                         resourceSet.Close()                     End If                 Catch ex As Exception                     assemblyInfos.Add(                         New AssemblyInfo With {                             .Path = file,                             .Assembly = "Error",                             .Resource = ex.Message}                         )                 End Try             Next         Next         Return assemblyInfos     End Function     Private Function AssemblyResolve(ByVal o As Object, ByVal e As ResolveEventArgs) As Assembly         Dim aName As New AssemblyName(e.Name)         Dim path1 = "The path where referenced assemblies are located."         Dim p1 = Path.Combine(path1, aName.Name + ".dll")         If (File.Exists(p1)) Then             Return Assembly.LoadFile(p1)         End If         Return Nothing     End Function End Class Public Class AssemblyInfo     Public Property Path As String     Public Property Assembly As String     Public Property Resource As String     Public Property Name As String     Public Property Value As String End Class

To make things as easy as possible I uploaded the solution to MSDN Code Gallery.

Enjoy!

   Daniel

* Design Change Request: Once a product is code complete the team focuses solely on bug-fixing and stabilizing the product and no new features are getting added. The only exception is when we learn (e.g. through a focus group working with the early product) that we’ve missed an important scenario/security issue/etc.