What false means in the android ids.xml file

Question

I notice that in the res/value folder of some android app's, there exists an ids.xml file with some item have false value what false means? can anyone tell me ,thank!

Answer 1

I believe you see these when you decompile an apk file. After some trial and error, I found out that the false does not actually do anything. You can put anything instead of a boolean.

So why is false is appearing? According to my experiments if you create a file ids.xml in your project after I compile my apk I would see exactly the same line in the compiled ids.xml as I see in my projects ids.xml. However, if I do not place my id in the ids.xml and create it using @+id/myId I will see a tag in the compiled ids.xml with a false as its value. I hope it answers your qestion

My ids.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <item name="test_id" type="id"/>
    <item name="test_id2" type="id">false</item>
    <item name="test_id3" type="id">This is a test String</item>
    <item name="test_id4" type="id">749274927492</item>
</resources>

In My Layout

<TextView
        android:id="@+id/myId"
        android:text="@string/hello_world"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

Generated ids.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <item type="id" name="test_id" />
    <item type="id" name="test_id2">false</item>
    <item type="id" name="test_id3">This is a test String</item>
    <item type="id" name="test_id4">1950617988</item>
    <item type="id" name="myId">false</item>
    <item type="id" name="action_bar_activity_content" />
    <item type="id" name="action_menu_divider" />
    <item type="id" name="action_menu_presenter" />
    <item type="id" name="action_bar_root">false</item>
    <item type="id" name="action_bar_container">false</item>
    <item type="id" name="action_bar">false</item>
    <item type="id" name="action_context_bar">false</item>
    <item type="id" name="split_action_bar">false</item>
    ....
</resources>