How to access a string using a dynamic string name in android (similar to eval in javascript)?

Question

I'm trying to access string variables using dynamic names depending on what position my gallery is at. To get the value of a string using a fixed name I use the following which is fine (the string is called pic1info):

String strTest = getResources().getString(R.string.pic1info);

My strings are named pic1info, pic2info, pic3info etc and I want to replace the static definition of pic1info to include the position so pass the contents of the following string in place of pic1info above so that it returns a different string depending on the current position:

String strDynamicStringName= "pic" + position + "info";

In javascript the equivalent would be eval, i'm sure there's a simple way to do this but i can't work out how!

Thanks so much for your help as ever!

Dave

Andrei Sfat · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-04 20:32:03Z

13

use this: android.content.res.Resources.getIdentifier

int resID = getResources().getIdentifier("pic" + position + "info", "string", getPackageName());
String strTest = getResources().getString(resID);

edited Jun 4, 2011 at 20:32

Andrei Sfat

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answered Jun 4, 2011 at 17:03

Kristin

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1 Comment

Sam Over a year ago

This answer is much slower, as it will require the use of reflection in Java. Be very careful using this method in production code.

Kaj · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-04 16:27:17Z

2

No, there's no simple way to do that in Java, but you can create an array of ints, where each index represents the R-value of that string.

private static final int[] LOOKUP_TABLE = new int[] {
   R.string.pic1info,
   R.string.pic2info,
   R.string.pic3info,
   R.string.pic4info
};

Getting a string would then become:

String strTest = getResources().getString(LOOKUP_TABLE[position]);

answered Jun 4, 2011 at 16:27

Kaj

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Comments

Tyler · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-04 23:49:06Z

2

Inspired by Kaj's answer, you can also put a String array in your XML file:

<resources>
    <string-array name="picInfos">
        <item>value of pic1info goes here</item>
        <item>value of pic2info goes here</item>
        <item>value of pic3info goes here</item>
    </string-array>
</resources>

answered Jun 4, 2011 at 23:49

Tyler

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