possible to access custom labels dynamically?

Question

In apex you can reference a custom label with system.Label.labelName, but is there a more dynamic way to get a custom label for example system.Label.get(labelName)? I can't find anything like this in the documentation but was hoping it was possible.

I'm trying to have custom labels for fields to support multiple languages. The list of fields I'm showing is built in the controller and displayed inside an apex:repeat tag so I can't hardcode the labels. Is there a way to accomplish this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

EDIT This is now possible! You can instantiate a dynamic visualforce component in Apex to get this.

public String getLabel(String myLabel ){
    Component.Apex.OutputText output = new Component.Apex.OutputText();
    output.expressions.value = '{!$Label.'+ myLabel + '}';
    return String.valueOf(output.value);
}

ORIGINAL ANSWER

No, you can't reference labels dynamically in apex. You can vote for this idea here. However, you can reference them dynamically from visualforce so you can put them on the page like so:

public class MyController
{
    public String mylabel{get; set;}

    public MyController()
    {
         mylabel='labelname';   
    }
}

<apex:page Controller="MyController">
    <apex:outputText> {!$Label[mylabel]} </apex:outputText>
</apex:page>

Answer 2

Following is a code snippet of a work-around. But it has a limitation of working Only in a constructor of a VF page controller class.

string labelName = 'DemoLabel';
Component.Apex.OutputText output;
output = new Component.Apex.OutputText();
output.expressions.value = '{!$Label.' + labelName + '}';
string labelValue = string.valueOf(output.value);

Hope this helps...

Answer 3

There's another workaround by KK Ramamoorthy which will also work outside of constructors. Is has it's own limitation, though: it doesn't work in Trigger context because the getContent() is seen as a callout.

What is does is it renders an in-memory visualforce page that takes the label name as a url parameter (and optionally also a language parameter). Then it fetches the label text from the generated page.

https://kksfblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/lost-in-translation-an-api-for-dynamically-translating-custom-labels-in-apex/

Answer 4

You can use metadata API to get the labels and also translations as well. Hope it will help out someone.

For labels : 
List<MetadataService.CustomLabel> csList = (List<MetadataService.CustomLabel>) service.readMetadata('CustomLabel', new String[] { 'a','b' }).getRecords();

For translations :
MetadataService.Translations translations = (MetadataService.Translations) service.readMetadata('Translations', new String[] { 'es' }).getRecords()[0];

Add this apex-mdapi wrapper class to your org

Answer 5

In summer 23 release notes, they introduced an easier method to Access Labels in Apex Dynamically:

Use the System.Label.get(namespace, label, language) method to get a custom label, optionally specifying a language.

The feature now allows dynamic resolution of label names at run time, including overriding the user’s current language if a translation exists for the requested language. Previously, retrieving labels required compile-time knowledge of the label API name.

You can also check if translation exists for a label and language in a namespace by using Label.translationExists(namespace, label, language). You can’t access labels that are protected in a different namespace.

Need to wait until the release/feature is generally available.

Answer 6

In Summer ’23 Release.
Use the System.Label.get(namespace, label, language) method to get a custom label, optionally specifying a language. The feature now allows dynamic resolution of label names at run time, including overriding the user’s current language if a translation exists for the requested language. Previously, retrieving labels required compile-time knowledge of the label API name.

String strLabel = System.Label.get('namespace','LableName','hi')