Reference control using string instead ID

Question

Typical way to reference android control is something like this:

TextView tv = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.tv);

Where R.id.tv is integer referencing my xml control.

The thing is I would like to make reference using string "R.id.tv". Is that possible?

Let's say I have multiple controls:

tv1,
tv2,
tv3,
tv4,
tv5,

How would I put this into some sort of loop and interate through controls. I am thinking I would use loop counter to reference different controls. How's that to be done? Thanks.

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 09 '11 at 18:35

3

One approach is to put the ids into an array and reference by subscript.

int[] ids = { R.id.tv1, R.id.tv2 /* etc. */ };
for (int i = 0; i < ids.length; ++i) {
    TextView tv = (TextView)findViewById(ids[i]);
}

answered Feb 09 '11 at 18:35

Ted Hopp

232,168
48
399
521

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 19 '12 at 09:31

Try next

private int getIdResourceByName(String aString)
{
  String packageName = "com.myProject.myPackage"; // set your package name here
  int resId = getResources().getIdentifier(aString, "id", packageName);
  return resId;
}

...

  for (int i = 1; i<=5; i++) {
      TextView tv = (TextView) findViewById(getIdResourceByName("tv" + Integer.toString(i)));
      ...
     }

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

1

Have a look at this question:

Using findviewbyid with a string in a loop

edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Community

1
1

answered Feb 09 '11 at 18:59

dave.c

10,910
5
39
62

thank you. I was looking at getIdentifier but I wasn't quite sure how to use it properly. Example you linked illustrates exactly what I wanted to achieve. – bobetko Feb 09 '11 at 20:07

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 09 '11 at 19:02

1

I don't understand why you'd want to do this, it's pretty ugly, inefficient, and likely to cause maintenance issues and bugs.

Why not use a collection (e.g. ArrayList) to store references to all the controls?

answered Feb 09 '11 at 19:02

Ollie C

28,313
34
134
217

Reference control using string instead ID

4 Answers4