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Graeme MacDougall
1,947 PointsBlog Reader Help in Understanding
In the creation of the blog reader, in the MainListActivity, why did we need to add the line:
Resources resources = getResources(); mAndroidNames = resources.getStringArray(R.array.android_names);
When the Toast we added was simply:
Toast.makeText(this, getString(R.string.no_items), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
I guess I just don't understand what/why the Resources resources was needed or what it does exactly.
1 Answer
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse TeacherExcellent question!
In the Toast line, get getString() method is from the Activity class. Since our code is in an Activity file, we can reference it without a dot or anything.
The getStringArray() method, however, is not a method in the Activity class. It's in the Resources class. So we need more information to reference it. Specifically, we need a Resources object (which we name "resources").
What's confusing is that the getResources() method is an Activity method. It returns a Resources object, which we store in the variable named resources.
So really the difference is simply that getStringArray() is in another class, and we need to do some extra work to get an instance of that class and use it in an Activity.