[Randactyl]

Continuing with localization, I like to have all of my strings in the same file so they are all in the same place when I need to edit them. Then I can use metatables to set a fallback option if I haven't gotten a particular string translated yet.

local strings = {
    ["de"] = {
        ["SI_MYADDON_NAME"] = "My German Addon name",
    },
    ["en"] = {
        ["SI_MYADDON_NAME"] = "My Addon name",
        ["SI_MYADDON_GENERAL_OPTIONS_HEADER"] = "General Options",
    },
}
 
setmetatable(strings["de"], {__index = strings["en"]})
 
local function AddStringsToGame()
    local lang = GetCVar("language.2")
    if strings[lang] == nil then lang = "en" end
 
    for i,v in pairs(strings[lang]) do
        ZO_CreateStringId(i, v)
    end
end
 
AddStringsToGame()

After the index metatabe is set, strings["de"] essentially becomes a union of the original strings["de"] and strings["en"] with any matching keys pulled from strings["de"] rather than strings["en"]:

strings["de"] = {
    ["SI_MYADDON_NAME"] = "My German Addon name",
    ["SI_MYADDON_GENERAL_OPTIONS_HEADER"] = "General Options",
}

As for exactly why this works or what else you can use metatables for, I couldn't tell you. Metatables are basically magic to me right now

I think making the decision to use this over votan's SafeAddString example really just comes down to personal preference. I suppose my method hogs more memory, but that shouldn't be an issue unless there are a lot of strings. If it did become an issue you could just nil the local strings table after the necessary ones were added to the game.