Question

I am trying to follow a tutorial on building a GridView Layout however I see context being passed to the image adapter, I dont want to copy the code or just retype it without knowing why its being done so I am wondering why its being passed. I have the basic understand about it being info about the app or its environment.

import android.content.Context;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.BaseAdapter;
import android.widget.GridView;
import android.widget.ImageView;

public class ImageAdapter extends BaseAdapter {
private Context mContext;

// Keep all Images in array
public Integer[] mThumbIds = {
        R.drawable.pic_1, R.drawable.pic_2,
        R.drawable.pic_3, R.drawable.pic_4,
        R.drawable.pic_5, R.drawable.pic_6,
        R.drawable.pic_7, R.drawable.pic_8,
        R.drawable.pic_9, R.drawable.pic_10,
        R.drawable.pic_11, R.drawable.pic_12,
        R.drawable.pic_13, R.drawable.pic_14,
        R.drawable.pic_15
};

// Constructor
public ImageAdapter(Context c){
    mContext = c;
}

@Override
public int getCount() {
    return mThumbIds.length;
}

@Override
public Object getItem(int position) {
    return mThumbIds[position];
}

@Override
public long getItemId(int position) {
    return 0;
}

@Override
public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
    ImageView imageView = new ImageView(mContext);
    imageView.setImageResource(mThumbIds[position]);
    imageView.setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType.CENTER_CROP);
    imageView.setLayoutParams(new GridView.LayoutParams(70, 70));
    return imageView;
}

}

Answer 1

The ImageAdapter stores the context in its constructor in mContext, because the ImageView constructor requires it in its own constructor later. ImageView, like all views, requires a context, through which it can access the current theme, resources, etc.