What is the resolution mechanism to localization resources in SharePoint 2010?

Question

How does SharePoint behave when it does not find resource file? (I'm interested specifically in SP2010 if the behavior was different across versions.)

I found errors in ULS log specifying it cannot load resource file for given feature. It is quite expected as the feature does not contain any resources, however on several places in the code there is used syntax for localized resource (e.g. Direction="$Resources:Direction;" attribute in List definition of schema.xml). These references to localized resource are clearly copy&paste mistakes. What is the exact behavior of SharePoint in such situations? Does it just write error in ULS log and uses empty string for the attribute value? I guess so as the application runs fine and no known issue arises expect the ULS entries. But surprisingly I haven't found any info on the behavior on the web..

Answer 1

After browsing similar topics here I found a reference to SharePoint dedicated StackExchange site. So I asked there too.

Shortly, rephrasing the answer, SP uses the resource reference as if it was a string if it does not find the resource file. (Credits to John Chapman)

For full answer see https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/80673/what-is-the-resolution-mechanism-to-localization-resources-in-sharepoint-2010