Question

I need to display a string in a TextView that begins with the @ sign for a Twitter handle. When I put the string in my strings.xml, it doesn’t like the @ at the beginning of the string and gives the error:

error: Error: No resource type specified (at 'twitter_handle' with value '@twitter_handle').

The layout.xml that has the TextView in it that uses the string resource gives the error:

The following classes could not be found:
- TextView (Change to android.widget.TextView, Fix Build Path, Edit XML)

There is no error if the @ sign is not at the beginning of the text, but anywhere else in the string.

If I escape the @ sign with either &#64 or \u0040, the error goes away in the strings.xml, but I still get the error in the layout.xml.

Is there any way to use a string that begins with the @ sign in a TextView in a layout.xml?

strings.xml:

...
<string name="twitter_handle">@twitter_handle</string>
...

layout.xml:

...
<TextView
    ...
    android:text="@string/twitter_handle"
    ... />
...

Undoubtedly the problem has to do with the fact that a leading @ implies a reference to a resource, but shouldn’t escaped @ signs be taken into account and work correctly?

Update: This issue was found to be a bug in the ADT Eclipse plugin. Installing the latest version recently released fixes the issue and escaping the @ in the strings.xml no longer causes an error.

Answer 1

Escape it with a leading slash, like this: <string name="test">\@twitter</string>

Edit: I should have read. You can programmatically assign the String to the TextView, by getting a string from it and set it to the TextView

 String twitter = getString(R.id.twitter);
 textView.setText(twitter);

Edit 2: Try this instead of the @ sign: @. It’s the html code for the sign.