How to get a value of color attribute programmatically

Question

When I use resolveAttribute() to find out a color value of ?attr/colorControlNormal, I got 236:

TypedValue typedValue = new TypedValue();
getTheme().resolveAttribute(R.attr.colorControlNormal, typedValue, true);
int color = typedValue.data;
// 236 

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But when I use an XML layout with the following TextView element:

<TextView
  android:id="@+id/textView"
  style="?android:attr/textAppearance"
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:textColor="?attr/colorControlNormal"
  android:text="@null" />

...and the following Java code:

View textView = findViewById(R.id.textView);
int color = ((TextView) textView).getCurrentTextColor();
// -1979711488

I got a color value of -1979711488

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Why those results vary? I expected to get same color values, but they are not.

The second approach (I believe) returns a correct color value. Why is my first approach wrong?

I would prefer to obtain the color value of ?attr/colorControlNormal without a need of using actual element. How can I do that?

Answer 1

I believe instead of this:

    TypedValue typedValue = new TypedValue();
    getTheme().resolveAttribute(R.attr.colorControlNormal, typedValue, true);
    int color = typedValue.data;

You should do this:

    TypedValue typedValue = new TypedValue();
    getTheme().resolveAttribute(R.attr.colorControlNormal, typedValue, true);
    int color = ContextCompat.getColor(this, typedValue.resourceId)