Dynamically add values to resource string-array in Android

Question

Is there a way to dynamically add values to an Android resource string-array ?

Eg:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string-array name="titles">
    </string-array>
</resources>

Answer 1

Is there a way to dynamically add values to an Android resource string-array?

No, because resources are read-only at runtime.

Answer 2

Yes! you can create a static array of strings in Android but dynamically adding values to an Android resource is not yet possible. It turns out that it's easy to create and use a static array of strings in Android. Of course, you can do this in Java code, as I describe in my Java string array tutorial, but for Android, I'm talking about doing this in XML.

In short, this is how you define a static string array in an Android XML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string-array name="my_books">
        <item>Scala Cookbook</item>
        <item>Play Framework Recipes</item>
        <item>How I Sold My Business: A Personal Diary</item>
        <item>A Survival Guide for New Consultants</item>
    </string-array>
</resources>

Then inside an Activity, Fragment, or other Java class, you can create a string array in Java from that XML like this:

Resources res = getResources();
String[] myBooks = res.getStringArray(R.array.my_books);