android: referring to ressources in custom xml

Question

i have a multilingual android app, where i have put the different translations in the strings.xml in the respective directory.

now i also have a custom xml file, where i would like to reference texts like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rooms>
    <room title="@+string/localizedtext" />
</rooms>

now when i read the title attribute in my code, i obviously get the unresolved string "@+string/localizedtext" like it is. is it possible to somehow resolve this link to the localized text automatically?

thanks!

Answer 1

Almost a year later:

    public static String getStringResource(Context context, String thingie) {
        try {
            String[] split = thingie.split("/");
            String pack = split[0].replace("@", "");
            String name = split[1];
            int id = context.getResources().getIdentifier(name, pack, context.getPackageName());
            return context.getResources().getString(id);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            return thingie;
        }
    }

That'll do it.

Answer 2

This might seem like a broad answer but I believe it'll clarify a lot of things for people who spent hours looking for it (I'm one of them).

The short answer is yes, you can use references in custom XML, not just for strings, but that's the example I use, for ease of understanding.

Considering the context:

• res/values/strings.xml
  (Default strings, usually en-US for convenience but that's up to the developer)

    <resources>
        <string name="sample_string">This is a sample string.</string>
    </resources>

• res/values-fr/strings.xml
  (Localized french strings)

    <resources>
        <string name="sample_string">Ceci est un exemple de chaîne</string>
    </resources>

• res/xml/test.xml
  (Custom XML file)

    <!-- @string/sample_string identifies both
         the default and french localized strings,
         the system settings determine which is used at runtime.
    -->
    <test>
        <sample name="sampleName" text="@string/sample_string"/>
    </test>

• src/com/example/app/TestXmlParser.java

    //Omitted imports for clarity.

    public class testXmlParser {
        public static final String ns = null;

        public int parse(XmlResourceParser parser) throws XmlPullParserException,
                                                          IOException{
            while(parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT){
                if(parser.getEventType() == XmlPullParser.START_TAG){
                    if(parser.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("sample")){

                        // This is what matters, we're getting a
                        // resource identifier and returning it.
                        return parser.getAttributeResourceValue(ns, "text", -1);    
                    }
                }
            }
            return -1;
        }

---

Use String getText(int id) to obtain the string corresponding to id (localized, if available).

Using the example above it would amount to replace :

//Return the resource id
return parser.getAttributeResourceValue(ns, "text", -1);

with :

//Return the localized string corresponding to the id.
int id = parser.getAttributeResourceValue(ns, "text", -1);
return getString(id);