SharePoint Read Resource File Programatically

SharePoint custom solution development might requires some dynamic or configuration values. Generally the high level configurations can be stored in web.config(Ex: external connection string). But if there are more number of configurations required (Es: List columns, Content type names etc.,) we cannot store them in .config file as it is not safe.

So here the resource file comes into picture. Resource file is XML-Based file which holds the data in key-value pair. Resource file is generally used to store huge configurations for re-usability & consistency and Localization.

Resource file (.resx) should be added to 12\Resources directory in the solution as a new item.
The name format is SampleResourceFile.en-US.resx

Usage:
If the solution provides provisioning of lists or libraries with multiple columns programatically using either code or xml, All the column names can be stored in Resource file as a Key-Value pair.

Read Resource File: XML
The resource value for a key can be read in XML as below.

Read Resource File: C# Code
The resource value for a key can be read in c# as below.

string customColumnNameKey = SPUtility.GetLocalizedString("$Resources:CustomColumnNameKey", SampleResourceFile, (uint)CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.LCID); //LCIT is current local languare

To read the resource file programatically, a common wrapper class can be created to read the resource file throughout the solution by passing the key.

public class Resources
{
    /// Resource File Name.
    /// Filename can be configured in web.configured or can be used as constant.
    private const string RESOURCE_FILE_NAME = "SampleResourceFile";

    /// Method to get the singleton instance.
    public static string GetValue(string key)
    {
        return SPUtility.GetLocalizedString("$Resources:" + key, RESOURCE_FILE_NAME, (uint)CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.LCID);
    }
}

string customColumnName = Resources.GetValue("CustomColumnNameKey");