CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidstring
mudit
mudit

Reputation: 25534

Plurals not working as intended in android

I am using Plural strings provided by android-sdk. I have used following code to create a plural string:

 <plurals name="valuestr">
        <item quantity="zero">Choose a value.</item>
        <item quantity="one">%d unit.</item>
        <item quantity="other">%d units.</item>
    </plurals>

Java Code:

textView.setText(getResources().getQuantityString(R.plurals.valuestr,0,0));

When i am setting any value other than '0', this is working fine but when i am setting '0' it is showing '0 unit.'.

Please help!

Update

While searching more on the internet i came across a workaround which uses java.text.MessageFormat class:

<resources>
    <string name="item_shop">{0,choice,0#No items|1#One item|1&lt;{0} items}</string>
</resources>

Then, from the code all you have to do is the following:

String fmt = resources.getText(R.string.item_shop);
textView.setText(MessageFormat.format(fmt, amount));

You can read more about the format strings in the javadocs for MessageFormat

Upvotes: 6

Views: 2751

Answers (2)

Igor Akkerman
Igor Akkerman

Reputation: 2488

Plurals defined in <plurals> sections of resource files are only to be used for a grammatical distinction with respect to singular/plural strings. You should not use them for other display logic, as you did. You should add some checking logic in your code instead.

The Android developer's guide clearly states this:

Although historically called "quantity strings" (and still called that in API), quantity strings should only be used for plurals. It would be a mistake to use quantity strings to implement something like Gmail's "Inbox" versus "Inbox (12)" when there are unread messages, for example. It might seem convenient to use quantity strings instead of an if statement, but it's important to note that some languages (such as Chinese) don't make these grammatical distinctions at all, so you'll always get the other string.

Your workaround - although working technically for your current implementation - does not appear like a clean solution either, in my opinion. Future business requirements may make it necessary to include more sophisticated logic than just displaying a different text. Or you may have a generic "no items selected" string in your resource file used at different locations, which could be reused only if you did not stick to your solution.

Generally, I would avoid using two different formatting techniques (String.format style formatter %d vs. MessageFormat style formatter {0} and pick one that you'd stick to in your whole application.

Upvotes: 0

Stefan de Bruijn
Stefan de Bruijn

Reputation: 6319

A post was recently made on G+ about this. In short, it is because this will not pick the closest match by Integer ( 0 = zero), but because it will look for the best grammatical pick.

In your example, you use units. The correct usage would be; 0 units 1 unit 2 units

Making, zero equal to pretty much any other quantity above 1

Read the full story here; https://plus.google.com/116539451797396019960/posts/VYcxa1jUGNo

Upvotes: 8

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