.XML - Android (Strings)

Content is machine translated from English by Phrase Language AI.

File Extensions	.xml
API Extension	xml
Import	Yes
Export	Yes
Plural forms support	Yes
Description support	Yes
Format options	convert_placeholder escape_linebreaks unescape_linebreaks enclose_in_cdata indent_size indent_style unescape_tags include_tools_locale_definition

Android XML is an Android-specific XML variation that can be used to load translated content into Android Apps. Its root element is a <resources> with numerous <string> elements nested under it that store strings pending translation. You may use Android Studio to generate these resource files and use Phrase to manage the translation.

Android Studio uses the property translatable to indicate whether the content needs to be translated. In Phrase, this property is ignored. There is no need to push these strings to Phrase. If a string should not be translated, define it in a separate resource file with all non-translatable strings (eg. donottranslate.xml).

Format Options

Identifier	convert_placeholder
Type	boolean
Upload	No
Download	Yes
Default	false
Description	Placeholder will be converted to match format specific requirements. Example: `$s' => '$@`

Identifier	escape_linebreaks
Type	Boolean
Upload	No
Download	Yes
Default	false
Description	All line breaks will be escaped as `\n`

Identifier	unescape_linebreaks
Type	boolean
Upload	Yes
Download	No
Default	false
Description	All `\n` will be imported as true newlines

Identifier	enclose_in_cdata
Type	boolean
Upload	No
Download	Yes
Default	false
Description	Encloses translations containing HTML tags in CDATA

Identifier	indent_size
Type	integer
Upload	No
Download	Yes
Default	4
Description	Specifies number of indentation characters

Identifier	indent_style
Type	string
Upload	No
Download	Yes
Default	space
Description	Specifies indentation character. Allowed values are `space` and `tab`.

Identifier	unescape_tags
Type	boolean
Upload	Yes
Download	No
Default	false
Description	All `<` characters will be unescaped to `<` and all `>` characters will be unescaped to `>` for tags.

Identifier	include_tools_locale_definition
Type	boolean
Upload	No
Download	Yes
Default	false
Description	Include `tools:locale` attribute in resulting XML.

Identifier	preserve_cdata
Type	boolean
Upload	No
Download	Yes
Default	false
Description	If the translation content already contains CDATA tag, this switch prevents the content from being additionally escaped.

Code Sample

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="boolean_key">--- true
</string>
    <string name="empty_string_translation"/>
    <!-- This is the beautiful description for this key! -->
    <string name="key_with_description">Check it out! This key has a description! (At least in some formats)</string>
    <string name="key_with_line-break">This translations contains
a line-break.</string>
    <string name="nested.deeply.key">Hey, this key is nested even deeper.</string>
    <string name="nested.key">This key is nested inside a namespace.</string>
    <string name="null_translation"/>
    <plurals name="pluralized_key">
        <item quantity="one">Only one plural forms found.</item>
        <item quantity="other">Hey, you have %s pluralizations!</item>        
    </plurals>
    <string-array name="sample_collection">
        <item>first item</item>
        <item>second item</item>
        <item>third item</item>
    </string-array>
    <string name="simple_key">Just a  key with a message.</string>
    <string name="unverified_key">This translation is not yet verified and waits for it. (In some formats we also export this status)</string>
</resources>

Plurals for Android XML files

For plural values assign a special <plurals> tag like this:

<plurals name="messages">
        <item quantity="one">One message received.</item>
        <item quantity="other">%s messages received.</item>        
</plurals>