what does "android:padding=-5dp" mean?

Question

I'm inspecting some old android layout:

and i see this attribute in a customView

android:padding="-5dp"

what does this mean?

(a) when coming alone?

(b) when android:paddingTop="-5dp" comes after android:padding="10dp" does this mean all paddings are 10 and the top is 5dp ?

attention

please note I'm asking specifically about negative value, not padding in general

possible duplicate of [Difference between px, dp, dip and sp in Android?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2025282/difference-between-px-dp-dip-and-sp-in-android) — Elliott Frisch, Nov 24 '13 at 09:18
no, please note I'm asking specifically about negative value, not padding in general — Elad Benda2, Nov 24 '13 at 09:23
It means what it says. offsetting the top of the page by a negative amount from the top of the screen. — Elliott Frisch, Nov 24 '13 at 09:28

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

2

a) I think these two links will help you: Effects of Negative padding and Is it a bad practice to use negative margins in Android?

b) You are right, all paddings are set to 10dp first, then padding-top is set to -5dp. You "overwrite" the 10dp with the -5dp.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

Community

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answered Nov 24 '13 at 10:12

Manuel Allenspach

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score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 24 '13 at 09:19

-1

Padding is the space between the view border and the content inside the view. when you say padding , it means padding in all directions (Top, left, bottom and right). when you say paddingTop , means padding only from the top.

answered Nov 24 '13 at 09:19

MSaudi

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please note I'm asking specifically about negative value, not padding in general – Elad Benda2 Nov 24 '13 at 09:23

what does "android:padding=-5dp" mean?

2 Answers2