How to extract all strings from application in Java

Question

In an Android application, all of the strings values are hard coded (labels, dialog titles, buttons, etc). My task is to extract all these strings into a resource file. Without manually going through the code and making a lot of c/p, is there a way I can extract all the Strings from the application? Using regexes? I was thinking of writing a Pattern with someting like ".*" Or somehow parsing through the code?

Edit: I am aware of the externalize strings for Eclipse, but it creates .properties file and what I need is an .xml file. So, it would take some effort again to convert it to an .xml file.

I was thinking of writing a simple program that would extract all the strings with the names of the classes they were found in.

Think you solved your own problem there :P . – Mike Lentini Oct 05 '11 at 15:50 — Mike Lentini, Oct 05 '11 at 15:50

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

3

Eclipse provides an externalize strings wizard. For Android-specific solutions: Externalize strings for Android project.

Hope it helps.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

Community

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answered Oct 05 '11 at 15:50

Savino Sguera

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Thanx, I am aware of this. But it creates .properties file, and it is not quite what I need. Android uses xml file for string resource. So, I would somehow need to convert .properties file to an .xml file, which is also a trouble. – Maggie Oct 05 '11 at 16:01
I can't find it in my Eclipse, but it in the comment it says I need to upgrade my adt version. Thanks, you are the best :) – Maggie Oct 05 '11 at 17:10

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '12 at 18:20

I wrote a short program to help me achieve this. I had a file with over hundred Strings in it, so just pressing Ctrl+1 --> Enter in each line would be too much of a hassle.

The little program takes the file location of your .java file as input and puts the info to your console for C&P. One could image improving it to crawl through the file system and do it for all .java files, but it was sufficient for my purpose...

package de.panschk.androidutil;
import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

public class ExtractStringHelper {

public static void main (String[] args) throws IOException {
    String fileName = "LOCATION OF .JAVA FILE";
    FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(fileName);
    streamToStringReplaceEntities(fis);
    fis.close();

}

private static Set<String> varNames= new HashSet<String>();
public static void streamToStringReplaceEntities(InputStream is)
        throws IOException {
    BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(is);
    ByteArrayOutputStream codeOut = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    StringBuffer xmlOut = new StringBuffer();
    boolean inLineComment = false;
    boolean inMultilineComment = false;
    boolean inQuotes = false;
    char lastChar = ' ';
    ByteArrayOutputStream stringContent = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    int result = bis.read();
    while (result != -1) {
        boolean inComment = inLineComment || inMultilineComment;
        byte b = (byte) result;
        // read next byte
        result = bis.read();
        boolean copyCharToBuffer = true;
        if (!inQuotes && !inComment && b == '"') {
            stringContent = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
            inQuotes = true;
            copyCharToBuffer = false;
        } else if (inQuotes && b == '"') {
            String content = stringContent.toString("UTF-8");
            String varName = makeVariableName(content);
            inQuotes = false;
            addXMLContent(varName, content, xmlOut);
            addCodeContent(varName, codeOut);
            copyCharToBuffer = false;

        } else if (inQuotes) {
            copyCharToBuffer = false;
            stringContent.write(b);

        } else if (!inComment && !inQuotes && lastChar == '/' && b == '/') {
            inLineComment = true;
        } else if (!inComment && !inQuotes && lastChar == '/' && b == '*') {
            inMultilineComment = true;
        } else if (inLineComment && b == '\n') {
            inLineComment = false;
        } else if (inMultilineComment && lastChar == '*' && b == '/') {
            inMultilineComment = false;
        }

        if (copyCharToBuffer) {
            codeOut.write(b);
        }
        lastChar = (char) b;
    }

    System.out.println(codeOut.toString("UTF-8"));
    System.out.println(xmlOut.toString());

}

private static void addCodeContent(String varName,
        ByteArrayOutputStream codeOut) throws IOException {
    String contentToAdd = "getResources().getString(R.string."+varName+")";
    byte[] bytes;
    try {
        bytes = contentToAdd.getBytes("UTF-8");
        codeOut.write(bytes);
    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

}

private static void addXMLContent(String varName, String content,
        StringBuffer xmlOut) {
    if (!varNames.contains(varName)) {
        content = content.replace("'", "\\'");
        xmlOut.append("    <string name=\"").append(varName).append("\">").append(content).append("</string>\n");
        varNames.add(varName);
    }

}

static String makeVariableName(String s) {
    s = s.replace(' ', '_');
    s = s.replaceAll("[^A-Za-z0-9_]", "").toLowerCase();
    return s;
}

}

How to extract all strings from application in Java

2 Answers2