Develop Reference

Use Unicode characters in strings.xml

I have the following unicode character that I want to use in a string: 🚕
I have found its hex and decimal code through this:
While I know how to use the "&" symbol in a string in strings.xml by doing this:
<string name="Example">Example character &</string>
I cannot use the car symbol.
How can I use this unicode character in a string in strings.xml?
Update One:
Following the first solution of using this: 🚗
I got the following error:ERROR IN APPLICATION: input is not valid Modified UTF-8:

It's
<string name="Example">Example character \u0026</string>
See more unicode characters here:
http://www.utf8-chartable.de/unicode-utf8-table.pl?number=1024&utf8=0x

if you go Unicode site : https://unicode-table.com/en/#control-character and click at this Unicode that says U+00AE you mustn't write the + symbol if you want copy paste this example at strings.xml
:) :) :)
<string name="example">"\u00AE"</string>

Few important Unicode symbols for android strings.xml
<string name=”Rs”>\u20B9</string>
<string name=”filled_bullet”>\u25CF</string>
<string name=”linear_bullet”>\u25CB</string>
<string name=”rect_bullet”>\u25A0</string>
<string name=”blank_rect”>\u25A1</string>
<string name=”true_tick”>\u2713</string>
<string name=”star”>\u2605</string>
Full link is here

<string name="ic_happy_font"></string>
or
<string name="edit">🚕</string>

Check that the XML is in UTF-8 and has <?xml ... encoding="UTF-8"?> or defaulted <?xml ... ?>.
First the Unicode code point is U+1F695 which is decimally 128661 (not ...3).
In XML content your approach is basically correct.
🚕
🚕
The error mentions "modified" UTF-8. This just means the code point U+0000, a binary 0, is also encoded as multi-byte sequence of bytes with high bit set. This is support for C where a "string" ends on a NUL byte.
As the TAXI code point needs 4 UTF-8 bytes, it might be that the XML on Android only supports less long UTF-8 sequences. At least for numeric entities &#...;.
If the entities are a problem, use an UTF-8 capable editor and paste the TAXI from the clipboard.
You might try whether there is a work-around, whether u-escaped chars are read (probably not):
\uD83D\uDE95
A last wild attempt would be to use
<?xml version="1.1" ...

I think the code point you have in your example is an ellipsis. As per this page, try
🚗

If anyone gets underlined space although you didn't intent it, you can avoid this by using unicode code point of space
For example:
<string name="conditions">By signing in you agree to our <u>Terms &
Conditions.</u></string>
would also underline space before 'Terms & Conditions'
solution:
<string name="conditions">By signing in you agree to our\u0020<u>Terms &
Conditions.</u></string>

How to use escape characters in XML

How can I use escape characters in XML?
The situation is, I am a new android developer, and I need a string which need to be printed in 2 lines (other wise no space). This string is in string.xml file. I need to use /n line break character to break the string, but I don't know how to do it in XML file. Please help.

See reference http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/string-resource.html#String
line break symbol is \n
/n - is wrong.
and you can write it in xml like it is.
Example:
<string name="multiline_text">line 1.\nline2.</string>

I'm not familiar with Android development but have you checked out CDATA? Refer to this link.
Basically, you wrap your string value like so:
<![CDATA[string value]]>

You can use double quotes:
<string name="mystring">"One line\nAnother line"</string>

You can use the character entity
to indicate a linefeed.

How to put a "-" in string.xml file

I need to be able to put a "-" in the string inside my strings.xml file.
My problem is that when I am putting my string which is "1261eba2-9d8c-11e1-93e3-40409e0f44a1", eclipse yells:
Multiple annotations found at this line:
- Replace "-" with an "en dash" character (–,
&;#8211;)
How can I fix this?

So, when you read the error message, your answer will be that
you have to replace - with –. Then it should work fine =)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash

The other answers are OK for when you want to display the string to the user. The user can't really tell the difference between a "real" dash and the unicode trickery.
But, if you really must have the dash (e.g. because that string is used as a password somewhere, or as a url key for an API) then you can just use this format:
<resources xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" tools:ignore="TypographyDashes">
<string name="EVA_API_KEY">3c42b725-5e20-41c8-982f-dee40be8a05b</string>
</resources>
The warning will be removed and the string can be read using the regular:
getResources().getString(R.string.EVA_API_KEY);

Use back slash ( \ ) in front of every special character. like me\&android.
This called escape character. ( \ )

For hyphen use (&#45) (-)...
<string name="abc">Welcome - Bro...</string>
and For more symbol use below link
http://www.degraeve.com/reference/specialcharacters.php
Enjoy...

The dash is a punctuation mark that is similar to a hyphen or minus sign, but differs from both of these symbols primarily in length and function. The most common versions of the dash are the en dash (–) and the em dash (—), named for the length of a typeface's lower-case n and upper-case M respectively.
Reference
Just replace - with – because when you type a dash on the keyboard, XML reads dash as minus, that's all.

You probably have this:
<string name="test1">1261eba2-9d8c-11e1-93e3-40409e0f44a1</string>
But you need either one of these:
<string name="test2">1261eba2–9d8c–11e1–93e3–40409e0f44a1</string>
<string name="test3">1261eba2–9d8c–11e1–93e3–40409e0f44a1</string>
In the second one the - is replaced by a –. It's hard to tell the difference visually.

The quick fix shortcut in Eclipse is Ctrl + 1 by default and in Android Studio is Alt + Enter by default.

writing some characters like '<' in an xml file

since the beginning of my programmation, I used some special character like "<-", ""<<" im my string.xml in Eclipse while developping for Android.
All worked fine for one year, but today, i just wanted to make some minor changes and began to edit my xml files.
I get now compilation error on these characters because eclipse believe it's part of the xml blocks.
Any idea on how I could add this symbol "<" in my xml files?
Thank a lot.

Use
< for <
> for >
& for &

Another way to insert special character follow Moss guide: How can I write character & in android strings.xml by used Unicode definition:
Example:
<string name="item_unknown">\u003c Item Unknown \u003e</string>
which present in string :
< Item Unknown >

I stumbled upon this question, as I use HTML markup in my strings.
If you refer to the Android String Resources documentation,
in the section:
"Styling with HTML markup"
you will see that in strings.xml, you need to use &amplt; for an opening bracket, but you can safely use backslash and a closing bracket. For example:
<b>Text</b>
can be written as:
<b>Text</b>
in your strings.xml.
If using this HTML string in your code, you can use:
Html.fromHtml( getResources().getString(R.string.yourHTMLString )
and the output will be your bold string!

How to keep the spaces at the end and/or at the beginning of a String?

I have to concatenate these two strings from my resource/value files:
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1">you found ALL PAIRS ! on </string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2"> flips !</string>
I do it this way :
String message_all_pairs_found = getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1)+total_flips+getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2);
Toast.makeText(this, message_all_pairs_found, 1000).show();
But the spaces at the end of the first string and at the beginning of the second string
have disappeared (when the Toast is shown) ...
What should I do ?
I guess the answer is somewhere here in this documentation link
or is it something like using &amp ; for the "&" character ??

Even if you use string formatting, sometimes you still need white spaces at the beginning or the end of your string. For these cases, neither escaping with \, nor xml:space attribute helps. You must use HTML entity   for a whitespace.
Use   for non-breakable whitespace.
Use for regular space.

I ran into the same issue. I wanted to leave a blank at the end of a resource string representing an on-screen field name.
I found a solution on this issue report : https://github.com/iBotPeaches/Apktool/issues/124
This is the same idea that Duessi suggests. Insert \u0020 directly in the XML for a blank you would like to preserve.
Example :
<string name="your_id">Score :\u0020</string>
The replacement is done at build time, therefore it will not affect the performance of your game.

This documentation suggests quoting will work:
<string name="my_str_spaces">" Before and after? "</string>

I just use the UTF code for space "\u0020" in the strings.xml file.
<string name="some_string">\u0020The name of my string.\u0020\u0020</string>
works great. (Android loves UTF codes)

This question may be old, but as of now the easiest way to do it is to add quotation marks.
For example:
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1">"you found ALL PAIRS ! on "</string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2">" flips !"</string>

There is possible to space with different widths:
<string name="space_demo">| | | ||</string>
| SPACE | THIN SPACE | HAIR SPACE | no space |
Visualisation:

use "" with the string resource value.
Example :
<string>"value with spaces"</string>
OR
use \u0020 code for spaces.

If you really want to do it the way you were doing then I think you have to tell it that the whitespace is relevant by escaping it:
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1">you found ALL PAIRS ! on\ </string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2">\ flips !</string>
However, I'd use string formatting for this. Something like the following:
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon">you found ALL PAIRS ! on %d flips !</string>
then
String message_all_pairs_found = String.format(getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon), total_flips);

Working well
I'm using \u0020
<string name="hi"> Hi \u0020 </string>
<string name="ten"> \u0020 out of 10 </string>
<string name="youHaveScored">\u0020 you have Scored \u0020</string>
Java file
String finalScore = getString(R.string.hi) +name+ getString(R.string.youHaveScored)+score+ getString(R.string.ten);
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),finalScore,Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
Screenshot
here Image of Showing Working of this code

All answers here did not work for me. Instead, to add a space at the end of a string in XML i did this
<string name="more_store">more store<b> </b> </string>

An argument can be made for adding the space programmatically. Since these cases will be often used in concatenations, I decided to stop the madness and just do the old + " " +. These will make sense in most European languages, I would gather.

I've no idea about Android in particular, but this looks like the usual XML whitespace handling - leading and trailing whitespace within an element is generally considered insignificant and removed. Try xml:space:
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1" xml:space="preserve">you found ALL PAIRS ! on </string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2" xml:space="preserve"> flips !</string>

This may not actually answer the question (How to keep whitespaces in XML) but it may solve the underlying problem more gracefully.
Instead of relying only on the XML resources, concatenate using format strings.
So first remove the whitespaces
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1">you found ALL PAIRS ! on</string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2">flips !</string>
And then build your string differently:
String message_all_pairs_found =
String.format(Locale.getDefault(),
"%s %d %s",
getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1),
total_flips,
getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2);
Toast.makeText(this, message_all_pairs_found, 1000).show();

There is also the solution of using CDATA. Example:
<string name="test"><![CDATA[Hello world]]></string>
But in general I think \u0020 is good enough.

If you need the space for the purpose of later concatenating it with other strings, then you can use the string formatting approach of adding arguments to your string definition:
<string name="error_">Error: %s</string>
Then for format the string (eg if you have an error returned by the server, otherwise use getString(R.string.string_resource_example)):
String message = context.getString(R.string.error_, "Server error message here")
Which results in:
Error: Server error message here

It does not work with xml:space="preserve"
so I did it the quickest way =>
I simply added a +" "+ where I needed it ...
String message_all_pairs_found = getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1)+" "+total_flips+" "+getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2);