Possible to get color with string?

Question

In my values folder I have my_colors.xml:

<resources>
    <!-- Orange -->
    <color name="orangePrimary">#f6a02d</color>
    <color name="orange1">#e3952a</color>
    <color name="orange2">#da8f28</color>
    <color name="orange3">#d08926</color>
</resources>

Is there a way to get these colors just with the string of its name? Something like view.setBackgroundColor.getColor("orange1");

For images you have this getResources().getIdentifier("my_image", "drawable", getPackageName());

Hope you guys know what I mean. Greetings.

Answer 1

Have you tried the following:

// java
Resources res = context.getResources();
String packageName = context.getPackageName();

int colorId = res.getIdentifier("my_color", "color", packageName);
int desiredColor = res.getColor(colorId);

// kotlin
val res: Resources = context.getResources()
val packageName: String = context.getPackageName()

val colorId: Int = res.getIdentifier("my_color", "color", packageName)
val desiredColor: Int = res.getColor(colorId)

Hope it helps!

---

Note: This is deprecated, instead you could do the following, which handles both pre and post Marshmallow (API 23):

// java
Resources res = context.getResources();
String packageName = context.getPackageName();

int colorId = res.getIdentifier("my_color", "color", packageName);
int desiredColor = ContextCompat.getColor(context, colorId);

// kotlin
val res: Resources = context.getResources()
val packageName: String = context.getPackageName()

val colorId: Int = res.getIdentifier("my_color", "color", packageName)
val desiredColor: Int = ContextCompat.getColor(context, colorId)

Answer 2

Okay, I got the color by name using reflection now and got this working in my side.

You need to write a function like this.

public int getColorByName(String name) {
    int colorId = 0;

    try {
        Class res = R.color.class;
        Field field = res.getField(name);
        colorId = field.getInt(null);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return colorId;
}

Now get the resource id using

int resourceId = getColorByName("orange1");

And set the drawable as a resource in your ImageView like this.

imageView.setBackgroundResource(resourceId);

I tried setting img.setBackgroundColor(resourceId) which was setting the wrong color.

In your case I would like to suggest to keep the colors in a typed array in your res/values/arrays.xml like this

<array name="colors">
    <item>#FFFF0000</item>
    <item>#FF00FF00</item>
    <item>#FF0000FF</item>
</array>

See the developers doc for Typed Array about how to use it.