How to specify null value for a string resource in xml in Android?

Question

In my values.xml, I have some string resources. But sometimes, I want to have a null value for that string resource for specific reasons.

How do I specify that string to have a null value?

values.xml:

<string name="default_item_0">Some String</string>
<string name="default_item_1">@null</string>

Java code:

String item0 = context.getString(R.string.default_item_0);
String item1 = context.getString(R.string.default_item_1);

Expected:

String item0 = "Some String";
String item1 = null;

Actual:

String item0 = "Some String";
String item1 = "@0";

I tried the @null value, but it returns a string of @0 instead.

Is it possible to have a null value in xml?

Answer 1

As you know resources exist because they're supposed to be "something NOT null", and @null is simply a reference resource with a zero-value id.

Is it possible to have a null value in xml?

Null value for string resources? No and honestly it doesn't seem reasonable

But in this case with your specific reasons I suggest you to add an empty string to resources:

<string name="empty"/>

Then you can check if it is empty or not :

String str = getString(R.string.empty);
    if (TextUtils.isEmpty(str)) {
        //do something
    }

P.S: Earlier I used this approach to map indices to the correct items of an array, as you guess in my case some indices were skipped so I had to skip some array items as well.