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Android Build an Interactive Story App (Retired) Intents and Multiple Activities Getting Data from an Intent

David Cutler
David Cutler
9,536 Points
Posted by David Cutler
David Cutler
9,536 Points

Edit text view returning ... something

I tried to implement a default name to use in the event the user left the edit text view blank.

Tried:

if (mName == null) mName = getString(R.string.default_name);

but didn't work, after a quick Google I ended up with:

if (mName.trim().length() == 0) mName = getString(R.string.default_name);

I'm guessing that in MainActivity

String name = mNameField.getText().toString();

is returning something even when blank and so never == null

I'm not really sure what trim() does though - the docs didn't make much sense to me.

2 Answers

Afik Paryente
Afik Paryente
2,042 Points

Im not 100% sure what you ment to ask here, but here is a quick explenation on EditTexts: Retriving the content of an EditText:

  String name = mNameEditText.getText().toString();

getText() returns type called 'Editable'. We use the 'toString' methode to, well, convert it to string! So - variable 'name' will get the content of the EditText.

Setting the content of an EditText:

 String name = getString(R.string.default_name);
 mNameEditText.setText("Default name is "+name);

What trim does: clearing the 'empty spaces' at the beginning and end of a string. For example:

 String strToTrim = "     Hi David      ";
 String afterTrim = strToTrim.trim();

afterTrim will be equal to "Hi David". Hope it helps.

David Cutler
David Cutler
9,536 Points
David Cutler
David Cutler
9,536 Points

You've answered my question which was essentially what the trim() function does - so thanks for that.

I'll just explain the context briefly - the getString method above pulls the name from another class which uses the code as you suggested above which is following the video guide.

String name = mNameField.getText().toString();

I'd forgotten where the string was pulled out of the edit text view because I came back to this bit at the end of the project. Because it returns something the == null condition never evaluates as true as suggested in the video tagged which is where I was getting confused.