How to dynamically generate the raw resource identifier in android?

Question

I am working on a mobile library app. I have a 3-4 db files of books stored in raw folder. If I know the name of the book then I first copy this file to /databases/book_name.db and then access them as required. I use

InputStream fileInputStream = getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.book_name);

for accessing these files.

Now, I want to pass the book name and then dynamically generate the resource identifier R.raw.book_name using the string book_name. Is there a way by which I can generate this identifier?

Answer 1

Use Resources.getIdentifier() method:

int resId = getResources().getIdentifier("raw/book_name", null, this.getPackageName());

If your code not in activity or application, you need to get Context first.

Context context = getContext(); // or getBaseContext(), or getApplicationContext()
int resId = context.getResources().getIdentifier("raw/book_name", null, context.getPackageName());

Answer 2

You can use the answer I gave here: Android: Accessing string.xml using variable name

Try:

int identifier = getResources().getIdentifier(bookname, "raw", "<application package class>");

EDIT: meh, its raw.

Answer 3

Based off of Sergey's answer.

I'm using this in a CursorAdapter to DRY up the code and the final version that worked was:

String attribute   = "company_name";
String packageName = view.getContext().getPackageName();

int resourceId = view.getResources().getIdentifier(attribute, null, packageName);

Actually, this was causing me problems so I switched to the following, which seemed more stable:

int resourceId = R.id.class.getField(attribute).getInt(null);