Referencing a string in a string array resource with xml

Question

I have preferences where you can enable disable what items will show up on the menu   There are 17 items   I made a string array in values arrays xml with titles for each of these 17 items   I have preferences xml which has the layout for my preferences file  and I would like to reference a single item from the string array to use as the title   How can I do this   In the Android developer reference  I see how I can reference a single string with XML  but not how I can reference a string from an array resource in XML

User · Answer

Unfortunately    It seems you can not reference a single item from an array in values arrays xml with XML   Of course you can in Java  but not XML   There s no information on doing so in the Android developer reference  and I could not find any anywhere else  It seems you can t use an array as a key in the preferences layout   Each key has to be a single value with it s own key name    What I want to accomplish  I want to be able to loop through the 17 preferences  check if the item is checked  and if it is  load the string from the string array for that preference name   Here s the code I was hoping would complete this task   SharedPreferences prefs   PreferenceManager getDefaultSharedPreferences getBaseContext       ArrayAdapter lt String gt  itemsArrayList   new ArrayAdapter lt String gt  getBaseContext      android R layout simple list item 1     String   itemNames   getResources   getStringArray R array itemNames array       for  int i   0  i  lt  16  i            if  prefs getBoolean  itemKey i    true               itemsArrayList add itemNames i                   What I did    I set a single string for each of the items  and referenced the single strings in the    I use the single string reference for the preferences layout checkbox titles  and the array for my loop  To loop through the preferences  I just named the keys like key1  key2  key3  etc   Since you reference a key with a string  you have the option to  build  the key name at runtime    Here s the new code   for  int i   0  i  lt  16  i                if  prefs getBoolean  itemKey    String valueOf i   true               itemsArrayList add itemNames i

User · Answer

In short  I don t think you can  but there seems to be a workaround    If you take a look into the Android Resource here   http   developer android com guide topics resources string-resource html  You see than under the array section  string array  at least   the  RESOURCE REFERENCE   as you get from an XML  does not specify a way to address the individual items  You can even try in your XML to use   array yourarrayhere   I know that in design time you will get the first item  But that is of no practical use if you want to use  let s say    the second  of course   HOWEVER  there is a trick you can do  See here   Referencing an XML string in an XML Array  Android   You can  cheat   not really  the array definition by addressing independent strings INSIDE the definition of the array  For example  in your strings xml    lt string name  earth  gt Earth lt  string gt   lt string name  moon  gt Moon lt  string gt    lt string-array name  system  gt       lt item gt  string earth lt  item gt       lt item gt  string moon lt  item gt   lt  string-array gt    By using this  you can use   string earth  and   string moon  normally in your  android text  and  android title  XML fields  and yet you won t lose the ability to use the array definition for whatever purposes you intended in the first place   Seems to work here on my Eclipse  Why don t you try and tell us if it works   -

User · Answer

Maybe this would help   String   some array   getResources   getStringArray R array your string array    So you get the array-list as a String   and then choose any i  some array i

User · Answer

Another way of doing it is defining a resources array in strings xml like below    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt  DOCTYPE resources        lt  ENTITY supportDefaultSelection  Choose your issue  gt       lt  ENTITY issueOption1  Support  gt       lt  ENTITY issueOption2  Feedback  gt       lt  ENTITY issueOption3  Help  gt        gt    and then defining a string array using the above resources   lt string-array name  support issues array  gt           lt item gt  amp supportDefaultSelection  lt  item gt           lt item gt  amp issueOption1  lt  item gt           lt item gt  amp issueOption2  lt  item gt           lt item gt  amp issueOption3  lt  item gt       lt  string-array gt    You could refer the same string into other xmls too keeping DRY intact  The advantage I see is  with a single value change it would effect all the references in the code

User · Answer

The better option would be to just use the resource returned array as an array  meaning    getResources   getStringArray R array your array  position   This is a shortcut approach of above mentioned approaches but does the work in the fashion you want  Otherwise android doesnt provides direct XML indexing for xml based arrays

[android] Referencing a string in a string array resource with xml

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