Placing a textview on top of imageview in android

Question

This should give you the required layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent" >

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/flag"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="250dp"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:scaleType="fitXY"
        android:src="@drawable/ic_launcher" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textview"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:layout_marginTop="20dp"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" />

</RelativeLayout>

Play with the android:layout_marginTop="20dp" to see which one suits you better. Use the id textview to dynamically set the android:text value.

Since a RelativeLayout stacks its children, defining the TextView after ImageView puts it 'over' the ImageView.

NOTE: Similar results can be obtained using a FrameLayout as the parent, along with the efficiency gain over using any other android container. Thanks to Igor Ganapolsky(see comment below) for pointing out that this answer needs an update.

Try this:

<RelativeLayout 
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="@+id/rel_layout"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" >

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ImageView"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:src=//source of image />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/ImageViewText"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_alignLeft="@id/ImageView"
    android:layout_alignTop="@id/ImageView"
    android:layout_alignRight="@id/ImageView"
    android:layout_alignBottom="@id/ImageView"
    android:text=//u r text here
    android:gravity="center"
    />

Hope this could help you.

you can use framelayout to achieve this.

how to use framelayout

<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="fill_parent">

   <ImageView 
   android:src="@drawable/ic_launcher"
   android:scaleType="fitCenter"
   android:layout_height="250px"
   android:layout_width="250px"/>

   <TextView
   android:text="Frame Demo"
   android:textSize="30px"
   android:textStyle="bold"
   android:layout_height="fill_parent"
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:gravity="center"/>
</FrameLayout>

ref: tutorialspoint

As you mentioned in OP, you need to overlay Text on ImageView programmatically way. You can get ImageView drawable and write on it with the help of putting it on Canvas and Paint.

 private BitmapDrawable writeTextOnDrawable(int drawableId, String text) 
 {
 Bitmap bm = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), drawableId).copy(Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888, true);
 Typeface tf = Typeface.create("Helvetica", Typeface.BOLD);
 Paint paint = new Paint();
 paint.setStyle(Style.FILL);
 paint.setColor(Color.WHITE);
 paint.setTypeface(tf);
 paint.setTextAlign(Align.CENTER);
 paint.setTextSize(11);
 Rect textRect = new Rect();
 paint.getTextBounds(text, 0, text.length(), textRect);
 Canvas canvas = new Canvas(bm);
 canvas.drawText(text, xPos, yPos, paint);
 return new BitmapDrawable(getResources(), bm);
 }