How to store text from multiple buttons in one variable in android development?

Question

I want to store the text on a button in a variable.

I refered This article but it defines for "One variable for one button".My app is going to have around 80-90 buttons. How can I store data from any of these buttons in a single variable and use that common variable for further operations?

Example -

I have buttons - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

How can I initialise them to a single button (the btn = (Button) findViewById... thing) in java and thus get their text in one single variable? Coz i cant define 90 buttons separately in java!!

How can i do this?

Here is the code of what ive done..(A completely supid or inefficient way)-

What it basically does is - out of 12 buttons,whichever is pressed,concatinates it with a string. like if 1 is pressed the string will be 01 after that if 10 is pressed, the string will become 0110 and so on...

public class FEa extends Activity implements View.OnClickListener
{
    Button b1,b2,b3,b4,b5,b6,b7,b8,b9,b10,b11,b12;
    TextView tvDisp;
    String acc;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.fea);
        initialise();
    }

    private void initialise()
    {
        b1 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn1);
        b1.setOnClickListener(this);
        b2 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn2);
        b2.setOnClickListener(this);
        b3 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn3);
        b3.setOnClickListener(this);
        b4 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn4);
        b4.setOnClickListener(this);
        b5 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn5);
        b5.setOnClickListener(this);
        b6 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn6);
        b6.setOnClickListener(this);
        b7 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn7);
        b7.setOnClickListener(this);
        b8 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn8);
        b8.setOnClickListener(this);
        b9 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn9);
        b9.setOnClickListener(this);
        b10 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn10);
        b10.setOnClickListener(this);
        b11 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn11);
        b11.setOnClickListener(this);
        b12 = (Button) findViewById (R.id.Btn12);
        b12.setOnClickListener(this);
        tvDisp=(TextView) findViewById (R.id.TxtViewDisplay);

    }

    @Override
    public void onClick(View v)
    {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        switch(v.getId())
        {
        case R.id.Btn1:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "01";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            else
            {
                acc=acc + "0"+1;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }

            break;
        case R.id.Btn2:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "02";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + "0"+2;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn3:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "03";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + "0"+3;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn4:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "04";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + "0"+4;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn5:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "05";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + "0"+5;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn6:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "06";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + "0"+6;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn7:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "07";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + "0"+7;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn8:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "08";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + "0"+8;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn9:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "09";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + "0" +9;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn10:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "10";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + 10;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn11:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "11";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + 11;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        case R.id.Btn12:

            if(acc == null)
            {
                acc = "12";
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);     
            }
            else
            {
                acc = acc + 12;
                tvDisp.setText("String Is:" + acc);
            }
            break;
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

I think you should have every button call the same onClick method, which you can set in xml for all buttons:

<Button android:layout_height="45dp"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:onClick="onButtonClick" />

Then in your activity, you can accumulate your string very easily:

public class FEa extends Activity
{
   TextView tvDisp;
   String acc = "";

   @Override
   protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
   {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       setContentView(R.layout.fea);
       tvDisp = (TextView) findViewById (R.id.TxtViewDisplay);
   }

    public void onButtonClick(View v){
        Button theButton = (Button)v;
        acc = acc + theButton.getText().toString();
        tvDisp.setText("String Is: " + acc);
    }

}

Answer 2

I haven't tested this code but you could set the tags for all of the buttons (in xml) to "button" then try something like storing all of the text in a HashMap:

HashMap<Integer, String> buttonTexts;
RelativeLayout mainLayout;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);     
    setContentView(R.layout.fea);
    buttonTexts = new HashMap<Integer, String>();
    mainLayout = (RelativeLayout)findViewById(R.id.myRelativeLayout);
    getTxtFromBtns();
    Log.i("HashMapValues", buttonTexts.toString());
}

public void getTxtFromBtns() {
    for (int i = 0; i <= mainLayout.getChildCount(); i++) {
        View view = mainLayout.getChildAt(i);
        String buttonChk = (String) view.getTag();
        if (buttonChk.equals("button")) {
            Button newBtn = (Button) view;
            String buttonText = (String) newBtn.getText();
            buttonTexts.put(view.getId(), buttonText);
        }
    }
}

Then you could retrieve the text simply by

String myButton = buttonTexts.get(R.id.Btn1);

Answer 3

I think that you could use some view like a view group to contain your buttons. Then you just have to use getChildAt(int index) in a for() or while() to get each button in any list and get the text from them one after another.

I never tried it but i think that i could work.

Hopes it helps.