Question

I need help explaing the following example below (c) CommonsWare.
I know it makes a subclass of Arraydapter to produce custom listviews.

However I don’t understand these rows:

    IconicAdapter() {
        super(DynamicDemo.this, R.layout.row, items);
    }

What does super() do? And what will the arguments be good for? Why do I need pass “items” as an argument but not the other array that is called “rating” ?

Full code:

public class DynamicDemo extends ListActivity {
    private String[] items = { "lorem", "ipsum", "dolor", "sit", "amet",
            "consectetuer", "adipiscing", "elit", "morbi", "vel", "ligula",
            "vitae", "arcu", "aliquet", "mollis", "etiam", "vel", "erat",
            "placerat", "ante", "porttitor", "sodales", "pellentesque",
            "augue", "purus" };

    private String[] rating = { "25%", "65%", "95%", "55%", "15%", "25%r",
            "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%",
            "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%", "25%",
            "25%" };

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
        super.onCreate(icicle);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        setListAdapter(new IconicAdapter());
    }

    public void onListItemClick(ListView parent, View v, int position, long id) {
        selection.setText(items[position]);
    }

    class IconicAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<String> {
        IconicAdapter() {
            super(DynamicDemo.this, R.layout.row, items);
        }

        public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
            LayoutInflater inflater = getLayoutInflater();
            View row = inflater.inflate(R.layout.row, parent, false);
            TextView label = (TextView) row.findViewById(R.id.label);
            TextView label2 = (TextView) row.findViewById(R.id.label2);

            label.setText(items[position]);
            label2.setText(rating[position]);

            return (row);
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

What does super() do?

It causes the superclass’ constructor to be executed. This is a requirement in Java.

And what will the arguments be good
for?

The arguments are required by the superclass’ constructor.

Why do I need pass “items” as an
argument but not the other array that
is called “rating” ?

My example does not have rating. I did not write the code you have pasted above.