Searching for a string in a String-Array item element - android

How to search for a specific text inside a string-array item element? The following is an example of the xml file. The string-array name is android. I have some items inside the string-array. Now I want to do a search for the word "software". Please tell me how to do that?
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><resources>
<string-array name="android">
<item>Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.</item>
<item>Google Inc. purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005..</item>
</string-array>

This method has better performances:
String[] androidStrings = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.android);
if (Arrays.asList(androidStrings).contains("software") {
// found a match to "software"
}
Arrays.asList().contains() is faster than using a for loop.

I assume that you want to do this in code. There's nothing in the api to do text matching on an entire String array; you need to do it one element at a time:
String[] androidStrings = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.android);
for (String s : androidStrings) {
int i = s.indexOf("software");
if (i >= 0) {
// found a match to "software" at offset i
}
}
Of course, you could use a Matcher and Pattern, or you could iterate through the array with an index if you wanted to know the position in the array of a match. But this is the general approach.

Related

Get a specific string from a stringarray in Android Studio

I have an array of strings (in strings.xml), in which I collect all my games
<string-array name="games">
<item name="select" translatable="false">...</item>
<item name="game_fortnite" translatable="false">Fortnite</item>
<item name="game_csgo" translatable="false">CounterStrike: Global Offensive</item>
<item name="game_minecraft_minigames" translatable="false">Minecraft Minigames</item>
</string-array>
I am now trying to get a specific item (In this case the first one, but I will need others later) from this array. Since i can give the items names, without Android Studio underlining it for me, I thought maybe i can refer to the strings by names, which does not work in any way I tried it.
In this case I am trying to find out wheter my string variable "game" has the same value as the array item I have named "select". I have tried all of the following:
if(game.equals(R.array.games.select)){
}
if(game.equals(R.string.games.select)){
}
if(game.equals(R.array.games[0])){
}
if(game.equals(R.array.select)){
}
I heve tried, as you can see, using an index (didn't work), but I'd like a possibility to refer to them by their name property.
This will reach your xml string and then you can use java string,
String gamesArr[] = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.games);
After doing this, create a list view and fill the list view items with that array.
And below code will give you selected item on the list view.
myList.getSelectedItem();
As per android documentation, the item tag for string-array does not have any attribute available.
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/string-resource#StringArray

Getting a string array from strings.xml in xamarin Android

I have a string array in strings.xml that looks like this:
<string-array name="helpPages">
<item>Hello, I am DOS-bot, and I will guide you through this game.</item>
<item>In this game you will learn how to use a computer terminal or console.
This is an important tool for dealing with technical problems on your computer.</item>
<item>For the common user, the terminal can be useful for figuring out problems
related to Internet connectivity, corrupted or damaged files and many more. </item>
</string-array>
And I want to access it in one of my activities.
I'm currently doing the following:
String[] pages = GetStringArray(Resource.Array.helpPages);
But it's not working.
I would do it like this :
String[] pages = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.helpPages);
The question asked about Xamarin.Android but the accepted answer syntax is for Java, so here is C# syntax (Xamarin way):
var items = Resources.GetStringArray(Resource.Array.helpPages);
You can access to each item by using for or foreach. for ex.:
foreach (var item in items)
{
// do whatever you want with item
}

How to put special characers in a list?

I'm trying to implement a Spinner in a form, I want to populate it with a list, it's work but i got special characters : "é" so I get a bad display, how to do ?
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
list.add("- Choisir -");
list.add("Rachat de crédits");
list.add("Renégocitaiton de crédits");
For displaying special characters in android we have to use corresponding unicode value.you have to convert special characters into unicode.next way to get rid from this take a look at custom fonts which supports complex characters.
You can accomplish this by creating custom spinner item and set custom font to those items.You can put the fonts into assets.
DejaVuSans.ttf is an example for such font's.
Take a look at this link
http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/ too
Search for other font's which do the job if this hvn't good enough.
Or if the special characters is not compulsory try to remove it from the list
String regEx = "[^a-zA-Z0-9]";
int count= 0;
for (String value : list)
{
list.set(count++, value .replaceAll(regEx, ""));
}
Why don't you simply retrieve them from strings.xml? I tried the following;
<string name="special_chars">ééé</string>
When I try it on Java side on a TextView for instance;
tv.setText(getResources().getString(R.string.special_chars));
It works, and it should work with a Spinner too.

Get resources automatically - Android

I'd like to know a better approach to improve performance of my program. The objective is to load resources automatically, I'm using names of string or string-array elements. For example, if I have the next resources:
<string name="temperature">temperature</string>
<string name="pressure">pressure</string>
<string name="velocity">velocity</string>
...
<string-array name="measures">
<item>#string/temperature</item>
<item>#string/pressure</item>
<item>#string/velocity</item>
...
</string-array>
<string name="name_temperature">Temperature</string>
<string name="name_pressure">Pressure</string>
<string name="name_velocity">Velocity</string>
...
<string-array
name="name_measures">
<item>#string/name_temperature</item>
<item>#string/name_pressure</item>
<item>#string/name_velocity</item>
...
</string-array>
<string-array name="units_temperature">
<item>K</item>
<item>°C</item>
<item>°F</item>
<item>R</item>
</string-array>
I'm loading resources this way:
measuresMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
String[] measures = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.measures);
for(int i = 0; i < measures.length; i++){
measuresMap.put(measures[i], getResources().getString(getResources().getIdentifier("name_" + measures[i], "string", getActivity().getPackageName())).toString());
}
i.e. I'm mapping the string-array values from 'measures' to it's corresponding string 'name_<>'.
I'm using a Spinner to select the measure, for example, 'Temperature':
measureSpinner = (Spinner) view.findViewById( R.id.spinnerConverter );
setSpinner(measureSpinner, R.array.name_measures, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
When an item is selected, a method retrieves the key from the Map depending on the item's string of the Spinner (getKeyByValueFromMap from here):
String[] units = getResources().getStringArray(getResources().getIdentifier("units_" + getKeyByValueFromMap(measuresMap, measureSpinner.getSelectedItem().toString()), "array", getActivity().getPackageName()));
public <T, E> T getKeyByValueFromMap(Map<T, E> map, E value) {
for (Map.Entry<T, E> entry : map.entrySet()) {
if (value.equals(entry.getValue())) {
return entry.getKey();
}
}
return null;
}
I need to do this to populate a NumberPicker:
String[] units = getResources().getStringArray(getResources().getIdentifier("units_" + getKeyByValueFromMap(measuresMap, measureSpinner.getSelectedItem().toString()), "array", getActivity().getPackageName()));
I think this is somehow inefficient. I read something about loading arrays with a TypedArray. I thought of a multidimensional String array. The objective is the same: load resources automatically (driven by the for loop to populate the Map). Is a HashMap the best option? It would be easier if a resource name could be defined with another resource string:
<string name="#string/temp">Temperature</string>
Every time I read a question about performance, a bell rings in my mind asking if there is really a performance issue. If you work with a small quantity of values, you won't really notice any bad performance. And if you work with lots of data, you should probably use sqlite instead.
If you won't be using #string/name_temperature per se, it can go directly on the array and make it similar to the example on the documentation
And yes, you can make use of TypedArray:
TypedArray measures = context.getResources().obtainTypedArray(R.array.name_measures);
It understands length() and getString(index).
Back to your code, I don't really understand your need of a map here, unless you are really worried of putting the strings directly in your arrays instead of the IDs.
Also, I see you use the name to generate the id of the Spinner; in this context, it doesn't help the performance and, more important, it does not make the code clearer either.
So the real answer:
I would take the references to the Spinners somewhere accessible. It might be nice to reify the need of a different key, and make a sublclass of Spinner that can convert indexed positions to the strings I want. In other words, delegate to the Spinner the responsibility of storing and converting positions to strings.
Since here I do need to map positions to the strings (instead of just the IDs), I could use a simple String[] and then, onItemSelected just access the position, geting the desired String, or setting it as selected (then when you ask your Spinner which value it has, you can just ask for its selected value, remember you now have it's reference on some attribute).

Referencing a string in a string array resource with xml

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.
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:
<string name="earth">Earth</string>
<string name="moon">Moon</string>
<string-array name="system">
<item>#string/earth</item>
<item>#string/moon</item>
</string-array>
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? :-)
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].
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 other mentioned approaches but does the work in the fashion you want. Otherwise Android doesn't provide direct XML indexing for XML based arrays.
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<String> itemsArrayList = new ArrayAdapter<String>(getBaseContext(), android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1);
String[] itemNames = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.itemNames_array);
for (int i = 0; i < 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 < 16; i++) {
if (prefs.getBoolean("itemKey" + String.valueOf(i), true)) {
itemsArrayList.add(itemNames[i]);
}
}
Another way of doing it is defining a resources array in strings.xml like below.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE resources [
<!ENTITY supportDefaultSelection "Choose your issue">
<!ENTITY issueOption1 "Support">
<!ENTITY issueOption2 "Feedback">
<!ENTITY issueOption3 "Help">
]>
and then defining a string array using the above resources
<string-array name="support_issues_array">
<item>&supportDefaultSelection;</item>
<item>&issueOption1;</item>
<item>&issueOption2;</item>
<item>&issueOption3;</item>
</string-array>
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.
The answer is quite easy to implement.
String[] arrayName = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.your_string_array);
and now you can access any element of the array by index (let suppose i'th index), then you can access it by arrayName[i]
I hope you understand this

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