Override toString() method of final BluetoothDevice class

Question

In my Android app I have a ListActivity which displays bluetooth devices. I have an ArrayList<BluetoothDevice> and ArrayAdapter<BluetoothDevice> . Everything works but there is one problem. Each BluetoothDevice is displayed as a MAC address in the list but I need to display its name.

As I know adapter calls toString method on each object. But BluetoothDevice returns MAC address if you call toString on it. So solution would be to override toString and return name instead of address. But BluetoothDevice is final class so I am not able to override it!

Any ideas how to force Bluetooth device to return its name instead address? toString ?

Answer 1

you could use composition instead of inheritance:

 public static class MyBluetoothDevice {
     BluetoothDevice mDevice;
     public MyBluetoothDevice(BluetoothDevice device) {
        mDevice = device;
     }

     public String toString() {
          if (mDevice != null) {
             return mDevice.getName();
          } 
          // fallback name
          return "";
     } 
 }

and off course your ArrayAdapter , will use MyBluetoothDevice instead of BluetoothDevice

Answer 2

Once you have your ArrayList

ArrayList<BluetoothDevice> btDeviceArray = new ArrayList<BluetoothDevice>();
ArrayAdapter<String> mArrayAdapter;

Now you can add the devices in the onCreateView for example:

mBluetoothAdapter = BluetoothAdapter.getDefaultAdapter();
mArrayAdapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(getActivity(), android.R.layout.simple_expandable_list_item_1);
        setListAdapter(mArrayAdapter);

Set<BluetoothDevice> pariedDevices = mBluetoothAdapter.getBondedDevices();
        if(pariedDevices.size() > 0){
            for(BluetoothDevice device : pariedDevices){
                mArrayAdapter.add(device.getName() + "\n" + device.getAddress());
                btDeviceArray.add(device);
            }
        }

So note that you can get the name with the .getName() method. This solve your problem?

Answer 3

As i already mentioned in the comment you could extend the ArrayAdapter and use another method instead of the toString Method.

For Example like so:

public class YourAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<BluetoothDevice> {
   ArrayList<BluetoothDevice> devices;
   //other stuff
 @Override
 public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
   //get view and the textView to show the name of the device
   textView.setText(devices.get(position).getName());
   return view;
 }
}