Android - Why is the TextView shown as having a height?

Question

I've got an odd problem here. Basically I have a TextView with no default set text. I would've expected it to have a height of 0 since it hsas no content but there seems to be a gap between the elements above and below it. If I set the height to 0 in the XML and then try and change it through Java code then it does not reset the height.

How do I set the height to be 0 if the content is blank but then allow it to be changed programmatically?

Here is the code that I have:

<TextView 
    android:gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical"
    android:id="@+id/connectionStatus"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:textSize="18px"
    android:textStyle="bold">
</TextView>

and the Java code is this:

    private void getConnectionStatus()
{
    if (hasConnection() == true)
    {
        //do something
    }
    else
    {
        connectionStatus.setHeight(48);
        connectionStatus.setText("No Internet Access");
    }   
}

Answer 1

Use visibility "gone" inside of the xml layout. Then in the Java code call connectionStatus.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);