Whether to use same XSLT file for both English and Arabic or separate?

Question

I am making a site in English and Arabic. I am using XSLT to display date but now I have realized that date is not being displayed properly in Arabic website. For that I need to change function in XSLT but problem is same function is being used in English site.

So I guess I will have to create a copy of that XSLT file in Arabic and then make changes in function. My question is, is this good practice? Do you guys create separate XSLT file for both English or Arabic or single? If single file then how do you handle function/code that needs to be displayed differently in both sites?

Answer 1

There is a global parameter in XSLT available in SharePoint called LCID that returns locale identifier (LCID) value for System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture (corresponds to the default language of the website)

For example:

<xsl:value-of select="ddwrt:FormatDate(atom:published, $LCID, 3)"/> 

For details about usage of date Formats in SharePoint XSL see, for example article Custom Date Formats in SharePoint XSL

For a full list of Global Parameters see XSLT Global Parameters

---

So, there is no need to create localized version of XSL files as it is common with Resource files in .NET