Question

I have 10 URL’s in my application, that are currently hard-coded. I want to externalize this and put it in a file so that my application can read it in.

What is the best way of doing this?

private String appURL = "http://..."
private String storeURL = "http://..."
private String someURL = "http://..."

Note: I will never be writing out to this file in my app. I want the developer to be able to open up the file, and change the URL if necessary.

Answer 1

Easiest way to externalize strings in an android application is to use string resources. Create file uris.xml at res/values folder:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="appUrl">http://...</string>
    <string name="storeUrl">http://...</string>
    <!-- etc /-->
</resources>

You then can then access the strings by:

String appUrl = getString(R.string.appUrl);
String storeUrl = getString(R.string.storeUrl);
//..etc

getString() is a method of Context class. Also keep in mind that you should wait until a Context will be initialized before starting access its resources. Hence invoke getString() not earlier then at onCreate() method of Activity or Application.