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Android

Posted by yadin michaeli
yadin michaeli
Courses Plus Student 5,423 Points

mFactTextView = findvVewByid(R.id.factTextView); question please

Hello,

i dont actully understand what this method does: mFactTextView = findvVewByid(R.id.factTextView);

i learn java but this is somethig new to me does somebody can explain it to me please?

2 Answers

christopher vaughan
christopher vaughan
1,411 Points

You're setting a variable, to hold a reference to the view.

So, on your layout you have a view(textview) with an id of factTextView. Think of the id as like a description of the thing. so if we were in a room and I asked you to findpersonbyhaircolor('red') you'd go off and look for a person with red hair. Now suppose there could only be one person with red hair (because this is a weird party). You'd go find that person and bring them back to me. and then I could tell them to do stuff. whereas I couldn't before because I didn't know where they were.

same thing here. you're telling the code "hey go find the view with this id" and then once it finds it it places a reference to it in the variable mFactTextView. And then you can tell it to do stuff like .setText().

'''java mFactTextView = findvVewByid(R.id.factTextView); '''

yadin michaeli
yadin michaeli
Courses Plus Student 5,423 Points

so factTextView suppost to be the value of mFactTextView ?

christopher vaughan
christopher vaughan
1,411 Points
christopher vaughan
christopher vaughan
1,411 Points

no, mFactTextView IS factTextView. you use it in the code like you would in the editor. like in the editor you'd set the text property to "test text" .. and in the code you'd use mFactTextView.setText("test text"). it's exactly the same, except one is done in the editor and one is done in code. the advantage of code being that you can change it at runtime(when the app is running on a user's device).

yadin michaeli
yadin michaeli
Courses Plus Student 5,423 Points

oh now i go it thank you very much !