Difference between Spannable and String in android

Question

Curiously want to know what is the purpose of Spannable in android. Isn't char array sufficient?

Answer 1

A Spannable allows to attach formatting information like bold, italic, ... to sub-sequences ("spans", thus the name) of the characters. It can be used whenever you want to represent "rich text".

The Html class provides an easy way to construct such text, for example:

Html.fromHtml("Text with <b>bold</b> and <em>italic</em>.")