Naming the Folders for Localized Resources

The XML resource files containing localized strings are placed in subfolders of the project’s res folder. Android uses a special folder-naming scheme to automatically choose the correct localized resources—for example, the folder values-fr would contain a strings.xml file for French and the folder values-es would contain a strings.xml file for Spanish. You can also name these folders with region information—values-en-rUS would contain a strings.xml file for United States English and values-en-rGB would contain a strings.xml file for United Kingdom English. If localized resources are not provided for a given locale, Android uses the app’s default resources—that is, those in the res folder’s values subfolder. We discuss these alternative-resource naming conventions in more detail in later chapters.