To be referenced by another string resources to avoid duplicated hard-coded strings in different places.
Suppose you have 2 string resources app_name
and about_text
below, you have 2 duplicated hard-coded strings.
<resources>
<string name="app_name">My App Name</string>
<string name="about_text">My App Name</string>
</resources>
Reference Another String Resources
To get rid of duplicated hard-coded strings, what you can do is reference the app_name
from the about_text
.
<resources>
<string name="app_name">My App Name</string>
<string name="about_text">@string/app_name</string>
</resources>
But what if you have more complicated about_text
like below?
<resources>
<string name="app_name">My App Name</string>
<string name="about_text">My App Name is an awesome app!</string>
</resources>
Use String Format
You can change the about_text
to string format to allow the string to be constructed at run time.
<resources>
<string name="app_name">My App Name</string>
<string name="about_text">%s is an awesome app!</string>
</resources>
In code (in your activity class for example), you pass in the app_name
string.
val aboutText = resources.getString(
R.string.about_text,
resources.getString(R.string.app_name))
Well, there is another better solution to use DOCTYPE! You don't need to pass in the string variable from code.
Use DOCTYPE resources ENTITY
The DOCTYPE resources ENTITY declaration like a variable. You can reference it from another string resources using &<entity_name>;
syntax.
<!DOCTYPE resources [
<!ENTITY app_name "My App Name">
<!ENTITY another_name "Test 1 2 3">
]>
<resources>
<string name="app_name">&app_name;</string>
<string name="about_text">&app_name; is an awesome app!</string>
</resources>
P/S: If there is another way better than using DOCTYPE, please let me know.
Originally published at https://vtsen.hashnode.dev.
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