How to put a “-” in string.xml file, but without escaping

Question

I have a configuration.xml file which I hold all the (yep, you guessed it!).. configuration strings and values and stuff.

One of those values is a string which is an oauth client id, and it has a hyphen..

<string name="server_clientid">5467656-blahblahblah.apps.googleusercontent.com</string>

Now I get the warning message..

Replace "-" with an "en dash" character (–, &#8211;) ?

Ok fair enough, but if I escape with this then the client id is not valid when I fetch it within the app. I can't use & #8211; basically. How do I get around this?

What prevents you from parsing the en dash when reading the UUID? — adrianp, May 30 '13 at 10:46
duplicate of [How to put a "-" in string.xml file](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10578551/how-to-put-a-in-string-xml-file). You will get your answer there. — MaciejGórski, May 30 '13 at 10:59

dKen · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-30T11:01:41.193

8

You wrap your values in

<![CDATA[ ]]>

which stops the parser from parsing the contents. E.g.

<string name="server_clientid"><![CDATA[ 5467656-blahblahblah.apps.googleusercontent.com ]]></string>

edited May 30 '13 at 11:01

answered May 30 '13 at 10:46

dKen

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I'm pretty sure the `<![CDATA[ ]]> ` goes inside the `string` tag. – Cornholio May 30 '13 at 10:48

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered May 30 '13 at 11:25

You can also suppress the lint warning (which is false since the dash is not used in a typographical context):

<resources xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools">

 ...

<string name="server_clientid" tools:ignore="TypographyDashes">5467656-blahblahblah.apps.googleusercontent.com</string>

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 02 '16 at 15:57

The "n dash" (–, –) and the "m dash" (—, —) characters are used for ranges (n dash) and breaks (m dash). Using these instead of plain hyphens can make text easier to read and your application will look more polished.

Replace smaller "-" with bigger "–". You are good to go.

How to put a “-” in string.xml file, but without escaping

3 Answers3