CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidstring-concatenation
Hubert
Hubert

Reputation: 16160

How to keep the spaces at the end and/or at the beginning of a String?

I have to concatenate these two strings from my resource/value files:

<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1">you found ALL PAIRS ! on </string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2"> flips !</string>

I do it this way :

String message_all_pairs_found = getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1)+total_flips+getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2);

Toast.makeText(this, message_all_pairs_found, 1000).show();

But the spaces at the end of the first string and at the beginning of the second string have disappeared (when the Toast is shown) ...

What should I do ?

I guess the answer is somewhere here in this documentation link

or is it something like using &amp ; for the "&" character ??

Upvotes: 429

Views: 195024

Answers (16)

Bhupendra Joshi
Bhupendra Joshi

Reputation: 273

use "" with the string resource value.

Example :

<string>"value with spaces"</string>

OR

use \u0020 code for spaces.

Upvotes: 15

TheIT
TheIT

Reputation: 12219

If you need the space for the purpose of later concatenating it with other strings, then you can use the string formatting approach of adding arguments to your string definition:

<string name="error_">Error: %s</string>

Then for format the string (eg if you have an error returned by the server, otherwise use getString(R.string.string_resource_example)):

String message = context.getString(R.string.error_, "Server error message here")

Which results in:

Error: Server error message here

Upvotes: -2

android developer
android developer

Reputation: 116040

There is also the solution of using CDATA. Example:

<string name="test"><![CDATA[Hello          world]]></string>

But in general I think \u0020 is good enough.

Upvotes: 0

Andrew
Andrew

Reputation: 38029

There is possible to space with different widths:

<string name="space_demo">|&#x20;|&#x2009;|&#x200A;||</string>

| SPACE | THIN SPACE | HAIR SPACE | no space |

Visualisation:

enter image description here

Upvotes: 15

kyay10
kyay10

Reputation: 942

This question may be old, but as of now the easiest way to do it is to add quotation marks. For example:

<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1">"you found ALL PAIRS ! on "</string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2">" flips !"</string>

Upvotes: 31

Skusku
Skusku

Reputation: 588

This may not actually answer the question (How to keep whitespaces in XML) but it may solve the underlying problem more gracefully.

Instead of relying only on the XML resources, concatenate using format strings. So first remove the whitespaces

<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1">you found ALL PAIRS ! on</string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2">flips !</string>

And then build your string differently:

String message_all_pairs_found = 
      String.format(Locale.getDefault(), 
                    "%s %d %s", 
                    getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1),
                    total_flips,
                    getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2);

Toast.makeText(this, message_all_pairs_found, 1000).show();

Upvotes: 0

Tarsbir Singh
Tarsbir Singh

Reputation: 527

Working well I'm using \u0020 

<string name="hi"> Hi \u0020 </string>
<string name="ten"> \u0020 out of 10  </string>
<string name="youHaveScored">\u0020 you have Scored \u0020</string>

Java file

String finalScore = getString(R.string.hi) +name+ getString(R.string.youHaveScored)+score+ getString(R.string.ten);
               Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),finalScore,Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

Screenshot here Image of Showing Working of this code

Upvotes: 8

Skywalker5446
Skywalker5446

Reputation: 1709

This documentation suggests quoting will work:

<string name="my_str_spaces">" Before and after? "</string>

Upvotes: 167

duessi
duessi

Reputation: 6110

Even if you use string formatting, sometimes you still need white spaces at the beginning or the end of your string. For these cases, neither escaping with \, nor xml:space attribute helps. You must use HTML entity &#160; for a whitespace.

Use &#160; for non-breakable whitespace.
Use &#032; for regular space.

Upvotes: 576

Jasen
Jasen

Reputation: 481

I just use the UTF code for space "\u0020" in the strings.xml file.

<string name="some_string">\u0020The name of my string.\u0020\u0020</string>

works great. (Android loves UTF codes)

Upvotes: 42

MPelletier
MPelletier

Reputation: 16699

An argument can be made for adding the space programmatically. Since these cases will be often used in concatenations, I decided to stop the madness and just do the old + " " +. These will make sense in most European languages, I would gather.

Upvotes: 2

DavGin
DavGin

Reputation: 8365

I ran into the same issue. I wanted to leave a blank at the end of a resource string representing an on-screen field name.

I found a solution on this issue report : https://github.com/iBotPeaches/Apktool/issues/124

This is the same idea that Duessi suggests. Insert \u0020 directly in the XML for a blank you would like to preserve.

Example : 

<string name="your_id">Score :\u0020</string>

The replacement is done at build time, therefore it will not affect the performance of your game.

Upvotes: 562

Etienne Lawlor
Etienne Lawlor

Reputation: 6697

All answers here did not work for me. Instead, to add a space at the end of a string in XML i did this 

<string name="more_store">more store<b> </b> </string>

Upvotes: 2

Jeremy Logan
Jeremy Logan

Reputation: 47514

If you really want to do it the way you were doing then I think you have to tell it that the whitespace is relevant by escaping it:

<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1">you found ALL PAIRS ! on\ </string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2">\ flips !</string>

However, I'd use string formatting for this. Something like the following:

<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon">you found ALL PAIRS ! on %d flips !</string>

then

String message_all_pairs_found = String.format(getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon), total_flips);

Upvotes: 9

Hubert
Hubert

Reputation: 16160

It does not work with xml:space="preserve"

so I did it the quickest way =>

I simply added a +" "+ where I needed it ...

String message_all_pairs_found = getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1)+" "+total_flips+" "+getString(R.string.Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2);

Upvotes: -6

Pavel Minaev
Pavel Minaev

Reputation: 101665

I've no idea about Android in particular, but this looks like the usual XML whitespace handling - leading and trailing whitespace within an element is generally considered insignificant and removed. Try xml:space:

<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part1" xml:space="preserve">you found ALL PAIRS ! on </string>
<string name="Toast_Memory_GameWon_part2" xml:space="preserve"> flips !</string>

Upvotes: 1

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