strings1.5 KB

Apple .strings — UTF-16 LE with BOM (Japanese)

The encoding fixture the .strings format needs: a Japanese catalog written as UTF-16 Little Endian with a byte-order mark, which is what Xcode has historically produced and what a UTF-8-only reader turns into mojibake or a decode error. Also carries full-width punctuation and an ideographic space for width and line-breaking tests.

Internationalization Encoding detection Localization catalogs

Preview — first 16 linesstrings

/* Novus example app - Japanese (ja) Localizable.strings
   ENCODING FIXTURE: this file is UTF-16 Little Endian with a BOM (FF FE), which is what Xcode
   has historically written for .strings and what a naive UTF-8 reader turns into mojibake or a
   decode error. The bytes are otherwise an ordinary .strings file: LF line endings encoded as
   0A 00, and every ASCII character followed by a 00 byte. */

"browser_title" = "ファイル";
"move_to_trash" = "ゴミ箱に入れる";
"move_confirm" = "%1$@ を %2$@ に移動しますか？";
"replace_confirm" = "%1$@ を %2$@ で置き換えますか？";
"quota_used" = "%1$@ がクォータの %2$ld%% を使用しています";
"disk_full" = "空き容量がありません。\n500 MB 以上空けてください。";

/* Full-width punctuation and a wide space — useful for width and line-breaking tests. */
"search_placeholder" = "ファイル名で検索　（例：報告書.pdf）";

Specifications

Format: Apple .strings
Locale: ja
Encoding: UTF-16 LE
Bom: FF FE
Canonical Name: Localizable.strings
Keys: 7
Line Endings: LF encoded as 0A 00
Features: full-width punctuation | ideographic space U+3000
Seed: 20260807
Wave: p7

Testing contract

Expected to pass

Scenario: Read the file with an encoding-sniffing loader and again with a hard-coded UTF-8 reader.
Expected result: The sniffing loader detects FF FE, decodes UTF-16 LE and returns seven keys; the UTF-8 reader either raises or returns NUL-interleaved mojibake. Every ASCII character occupies two bytes and each line ends 0A 00.

What is a .strings file?

An Apple .strings file is a plain-text localization catalog used by iOS and macOS apps. Each line maps a quoted key to a quoted translated value with a trailing semicolon, optionally preceded by a comment, and placeholders use printf-style tokens like %@ and %d. It is typically stored per-locale in an .lproj folder.

How to use this file

Use an example .strings file to test Apple localization parsers, Xcode string catalogs, .strings-to-XLIFF converters, and tooling that reads iOS/macOS translations.

How to use this file for testing

“Apple .strings — UTF-16 LE with BOM (Japanese)” is a deterministic Novus Examples fixture for Internationalization, Encoding detection, Localization catalogs. Parallel text and accented, multi-script content — for testing translation pipelines, Unicode handling, and localization tooling.

Documented properties for this file: seed 20260807 · UTF-16 LE · LF encoded as 0A 00. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.

Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such — expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.

Translation-catalog fixtures carry the same message set across formats, each with its native placeholder syntax. Test your i18n loader, catalog converter, or translation-memory tool, and use the RTL and CJK variants to check bidirectional text and Unicode handling.

Load the catalog with your i18n framework and verify placeholder interpolation and plural handling; the RTL and CJK variants exercise bidirectional text and font fallback.

Code examples

plutil -lint Localizable-ja-utf16le.strings    # macOS validation
cat Localizable-ja-utf16le.strings             # "key" = "value";  pairs

Generated by generation/localization_p7.py. Free for any use, no attribution required — license.