Unable to switch language dynamically when using AOT compilation

[SydneyOwl]

Hi Antelcat team,

Thanks for bringing such an excellent project!

I'm encountering an issue with dynamic language switching when using AOT compilation. Under non-AOT compilation, I can successfully switch languages via I18NExtension.Culture = new CultureInfo("xxx"). However, after enabling AOT compilation, the project only displays default language (in my case, en-US). Switching languages through CultureInfo no longer works, and this issue occurs on both Linux and Windows platforms.

I also attempted to use rd.xml to exclude Antelcat.I18N.Avalonia from trimming, but it appears to have no effect.

On Linux platform, I use net10 for AOT compilation, while on Windows I use net10-windows. Below is the simplified csproj file:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
    <PropertyGroup> 
        <TargetFrameworks>net10.0</TargetFrameworks>
        <OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>
        <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
        <AvaloniaUseCompiledBindingsByDefault>true</AvaloniaUseCompiledBindingsByDefault>
        <PublishAot>true</PublishAot>
        <BuiltInComInteropSupport>false</BuiltInComInteropSupport>
        <TrimMode>partial</TrimMode>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="Antelcat.I18N.Avalonia" Version="1.1.2"/>
        <PackageReference Include="Avalonia" Version="11.3.1"/>
        <PackageReference Include="Avalonia.Desktop" Version="11.3.1"/>
        <!-- （Other deps skipped） -->
    </ItemGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
        <EmbeddedResource Update="Resources\Language\Language.resx">
          <Generator>PublicResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
        </EmbeddedResource>
        <EmbeddedResource Update="Resources\Language\Language.en-us.resx">
          <Generator>PublicResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
        </EmbeddedResource>
        <EmbeddedResource Update="Resources\Language\Language.zh-hans.resx">
          <Generator>PublicResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
        </EmbeddedResource>
        <EmbeddedResource Update="Resources\Language\Language.ja-jp.resx">
          <Generator>PublicResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
        </EmbeddedResource>
        <EmbeddedResource Update="Resources\Language\Language.zh-hant.resx">
          <Generator>PublicResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
        </EmbeddedResource>
    </ItemGroup>

<!-- Skipped other confs -->

</Project>

and I am building it using:

 dotnet publish -c Release -r "$runtime" \
             -f "$framework_name" \
             -p:TrimUnusedDependencies=true

Could you give me some suggestions on how to resolve this? Thanks in advance!

[feast107]

Not supporting AOT currently, see-#2

[SydneyOwl]

Got it - Thanks for the quick response!

[feast107]

Wait, I did support AOT after some changes, and the demo seems work well when I marked <AvaloniaUseCompiledBindingsByDefault>true</AvaloniaUseCompiledBindingsByDefault> in csproj
but I can't run the demo😔 published by AOT, would u mind if pull the repo and run Antelcat.I18N.Avalonia.Demo on your own machine to check if it really works.

[feast107]

I published a preview version of Antelcat.I18N.Avalonia-2.0.0-preview, with a slight api-change which can be found in README, just for avalonia aot compilation.

[SydneyOwl]

Hello @feast107,

would u mind if pull the repo and run Antelcat.I18N.Avalonia.Demo on your own machine to check if it really works.

Yes – I can confirm that both demos (Simple.AOTDemo and Demo) from the 2.0.0-preview release are working correctly on my Windows 11 !

Unfortunately, the same setup is not working in my own project. I have already called LangKeys.Your_Provider.Initialize(); in App.axaml.cs and even attempted to prevent the I18NExtension from being trimmed by adding:

[DynamicDependency(DynamicallyAccessedMemberTypes.All, typeof(I18NExtension))]
[DynamicDependency(DynamicallyAccessedMemberTypes.All, typeof(LanguageBinding))]

However, the language switching still does not take effect — the default language is always displayed. I also noticed that in your example project's .csproj file, link is used as the TrimMode, but in my project, I am using partial (using link would over-trim my project). I'm not entirely sure if this is related and will give it another try tomorrow!

[feast107]

I d like to see more details:
when using 2.0.0-preview, runtime mode and aot mode should have the same behavior. If both modes not switch language, it s probably lifecycle prob. Initialize() should be called early enough, at the top of the ctor, even in Program.cs.
If it differs, I need to know more.

[SydneyOwl]

Hi @feast107 I've confirmed the initialization is executed at the very start of Program.cs:

internal sealed class Program
{
    [STAThread]
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        LangKeys.LanguageProvider.Initialize();
        DXCCKeys.DXCCProvider.Initialize();
        
        Parser.Default.ParseArguments<CommandLineOptions>(args)
            .WithParsed(options => RunWithOptions(options, args))
            .WithNotParsed(HandleParseErrors);
    }

    private static void RunWithOptions(CommandLineOptions options, string[] originalArgs)
    {
        try
        {
            BuildAvaloniaApp(options)
                .StartWithClassicDesktopLifetime(originalArgs);
        }
        catch {.....}
    }
}

Non-AOT works perfectly with language switching, but the AOT build still fails to load translations and only shows default text
and No runtime exceptions are thrown.

Even when I test the translation directly in Program.cs (before starting the app), it still fails in AOT:

// This does NOT work in AOT program!
internal sealed class Program
{
    [STAThread]
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        DXCCKeys.DXCCProvider.Initialize();
        LangKeys.LanguageProvider.Initialize();
        
        I18NExtension.Culture = new CultureInfo("zh-CN");
        Console.WriteLine(TranslationHelper.GetString(DXCCKeys.Andaman_Nicobar_Is));
        Console.WriteLine(TranslationHelper.GetString(LangKeys.accept));
        I18NExtension.Culture = new CultureInfo("en-US");
        Console.WriteLine(TranslationHelper.GetString(DXCCKeys.Andaman_Nicobar_Is));
        Console.WriteLine(TranslationHelper.GetString(LangKeys.accept));
        
        Parser.Default.ParseArguments<CommandLineOptions>(args)
            .WithParsed(options => RunWithOptions(options, args))
            .WithNotParsed(HandleParseErrors);
    }

The TranslationHelper.GetString method is defined as:

public static string GetString(string key)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(key))
    {
        return string.Empty;
    }
    return I18NExtension.Translate(key) ?? key;
}

What debugging steps would you like me to try, or what additional information should I provide? Thanks!

[SydneyOwl]

hello @feast107 I have prepared a minimal project to reproduce the issue, which can be viewed here: https://github.com/OwlCatDog/AOTDEMO