Pseudolocalization

Pseudolocalization replaces ASCII letters with accented equivalents, making it easy to spot hardcoded strings that bypass the translation system. MoonBuggy implements this as a compile-time switch with zero runtime overhead when disabled.

Enabling pseudolocalization

Add the MoonBuggyPseudoLocale property to your .csproj:

<PropertyGroup>
  <MoonBuggyPseudoLocale>true</MoonBuggyPseudoLocale>
</PropertyGroup>

When enabled, the source generator adds a pseudo-locale branch to every generated interceptor. For example, the string "Hello world" becomes "Ḧëĺĺö ẅöŕĺḋ".

Activating at runtime

The pseudo-locale uses LCID 4096 (0x1000, which is LOCALE_CUSTOM_DEFAULT). Set it in your middleware:

using MoonBuggy;

app.Use(async (context, next) =>
{
    // Enable pseudo-locale for testing
    I18n.Current = new I18nContext { LCID = 4096 };
    await next();
});

You might gate this behind a query parameter or cookie during development:

app.Use(async (context, next) =>
{
    if (context.Request.Query.ContainsKey("pseudo"))
    {
        I18n.Current = new I18nContext { LCID = 4096 };
    }
    await next();
});

Then visit https://localhost:5001/?pseudo to see the pseudo-locale in action.

What it catches

Pseudolocalization helps you find:

• Hardcoded strings — any text that appears in normal ASCII characters hasn't gone through _t() or _m().
• Layout issues — accented characters are often wider, revealing truncation or overflow problems that would appear with real translations.
• Concatenation bugs — if translated and non-translated strings are concatenated, the pseudo-locale makes the boundary obvious.

Zero overhead in production

When MoonBuggyPseudoLocale is false (the default), no pseudo-locale code is generated at all. The generated interceptors contain only your configured locale branches. There is no runtime cost — the switch is purely a compile-time concern.

This means you can:

• Enable it in Debug configuration only using MSBuild conditions
• Enable it in a dedicated build configuration

<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Debug'">
  <MoonBuggyPseudoLocale>true</MoonBuggyPseudoLocale>
</PropertyGroup>

Character mapping

The pseudo-locale transforms each ASCII letter to a visually similar accented character. Some examples:

Original	Pseudo
a	ä
e	ë
H	Ḧ
l	ĺ
o	ö
w	ẅ

Non-letter characters (numbers, punctuation, whitespace) are preserved unchanged. ICU placeholders like {name} and HTML tags are not transformed — only the translatable text content is modified.