Generate a string resource containing % from build.gradle with resValue

Question

I have a custom task in my build.gradle which generates some string resources:

android.defaultConfig.resValue "string", "my_string", "Some Value"

This all works fine: the strings appear correctly in generated.xml and are accessible via getResources().getString(R.id.my_string) in the application code.

It doesn't work when one of the strings contains a % symbol. It gives this error:

Error:(1) Multiple substitutions specified in non-positional format; did you mean to add the formatted="false" attribute?

I understand from Android XML Percent Symbol that one would normally work around this, for a string resource in strings.xml, by supplying the extra formatted="false" attribute as follows:

<string formatted="false">My string with a % symbol</string>

How can I include the formatted="false" attribute when the string is generated using resValue in the build script?

(I have also tried escaping with double-% as suggested, but that results in %% appearing in the final string.)

Answer 1

I solved it by replacing the raw % symbol with a double-escaped unicode value at string generation time in the gradle task.

android.defaultConfig.resValue "string", "my_string", \
    "String with a % symbol".replaceAll("%","\\\\u0025")