getString Outside of a Context or Activity

Question

I've found the R.string pretty awesome for keeping hardcoded strings out of my code, and I'd like to keep using it in a utility class that works with models in my application to generate output. For instance, in this case I am generating an email from a model outside of the activity.

Is it possible to use getString outside a Context or Activity? I suppose I could pass in the current activity, but it seems unnecessary. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Edit: Can we access the resources without using Context?

Answer 1

Yes, we can access resources without using `Context`

You can use:

Resources.getSystem().getString(android.R.string.somecommonstuff) 

... everywhere in your application, even in static constants declarations. Unfortunately, it supports the system resources only.

For local resources use this solution. It is not trivial, but it works.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, the only way you can access any of the string resources is with a Context (i.e. an Activity or Service). What I've usually done in this case, is to simply require the caller to pass in the context.