String.XML In Android

Here is the source code to Demonstrate the Usage of String.xml File in Android. The program is successfully compiled and run on a Windows system using Eclipse Ide. The program output is also shown below.

Ever wondered whenever u create an application and in the activity_main.xml u get a hello world text view in this layout, now if u see the text that is to this component it is

android:text="@string/hello_world"

but the text that u see is Hello World, this is because the following hello_world is defined in ur strings.xml which is in res/values, this is very the magic really happens, u can define array in this XML file and use later in ur activity. The following code also demonstrates this.

Main Activity

package com.example.string;
 
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.view.Menu;
 
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
 
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
 
    }
 
    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
        return true;
    }
 
}

strings.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
 
    <string name="app_name">string</string>
    <string name="action_settings">Settings</string>
    <string name="hello_world">Hello world!</string>
    <string name="my_text">Definition of text!</string>
 
    <string-array name="operating_systems">
        <item>Android</item>
        <item>iPhone</item>
        <item>Windows Mobile</item>
        <item>Linux </item>
        <item>Windows 7.0</item>
        <item>Windows 8.0</item>
        <item>Windows 8.1</item>
        <item>Chrome OS</item>
        <item>Unix</item>
        <item>Symbian</item>
    </string-array>
 
</resources>

activity_main

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<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context=".MainActivity" >
 
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView2"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/hello_world" />
 
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView1"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:layout_below="@+id/textView2"
        android:layout_marginTop="110dp"
        android:text="@string/my_text"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />
 
</RelativeLayout>

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