Using HashMap to map a String and int

Question

I have a ListView showing names of countries. I have stored the names in strings.xml as a string-array called country_names.

In populating the ListView, I use an ArrayAdapter which reads from strings.xml:

String[] countryNames = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.country_names);
ArrayAdapter<String> countryAdapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.checked_list, countryNames);
myList.setAdapter(countryAdapter);

Now I also have a CountryCode for each country. When a particular country name is clicked on the ListView, I need to Toast the corresponding CountryCode.

I understand implementing a HashMap is the best technique for this. As far as I know, the HashMap is populated using put() function.

myMap.put("Country",28);

Now my questions are:

1. Is it possible to read the string.xml array and use it to populate the Map? I mean, I want to add items to the Map, but I must be able to do so by reading the items from another array. How can I do this?

   The basic reason I ask is because I want to keep the country names and codes in a place where it is easier to add/remove/modify them.

2. The string-arrays are stored in strings.xml. Where must similar integer arrays be stored? In values folder, but under any specific XML file?

Solution

1. As one of the possibilities, you may store 2 different arrays in XML: string array and integer array, and then programmatically put them in the HashMap.

   Definition of arrays:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <resources>
       <string-array name="countries_names">
           <item>USA</item>
           <item>Russia</item>
       </string-array>
   
       <integer-array name="countries_codes">
           <item>1</item>
           <item>7</item>
       </integer-array>
   </resources>
   

   And code:

   String[] countriesNames = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.countries_names);
   int[] countriesCodes = getResources().getIntArray(R.array.countries_codes);
   
   HashMap<String, Integer> myMap = new HashMap<String, Integer>();
   for (int i = 0; i < countriesNames.length; i++) {
       myMap.put(countriesNames[i], countriesCodes[i]);
   }
   

2. It may be a file with any name. See this

Comments

[kiki]

Hi, Sergey. I want to know HOW to programmatically put the values into the HashMap.Could you share a code snippet in your answer. As to 2), thanks, that is what I was looking for.

[kiki]

Hey, thanks a lot! I was confused whether put() would work that way.

[kirhgoff]

Thats surely a solution, but the data is split to two independant data sets, which could cause a problem, if you are editing these two lists a lot. Is there a way to create as a one resource piece, like maps in Spring, for example?

[Sergey Glotov]

@kirhgoff I don't know such a way

[kirhgoff]

Also didnt find anything, using delimiter in the string and parse the array on the load.