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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T14:33:50+00:00

I specified a meta-data in my manifest.xml like this: <meta-data android:value="5555555555" android:name="foo"></meta-data> When accessing

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I specified a meta-data in my manifest.xml like this:

<meta-data android:value="5555555555" android:name="foo"></meta-data>

When accessing the metadata like this:

ActivityInfo ai = act.getPackageManager().getActivityInfo(componentName, PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);
Object value = (Object)ai.metaData.get(key);

this value gets interpreted as int and – more importantly – incorrectly interpreted (1260588259).

Since the type is determined automatically by the build system ( booleans, ints, floats, and strings ) I wondered if there is any way to force the data type to string.

I tried adding a space at the end ( "5555555555 "), but then the value gets interpreted as 5.5555553E9 float! ).

I also tried using getString instead of get, but then null is returned.

Any ideas? TIA.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Putting an escaped space in front of the number seems to work:

    <meta-data android:name="foo" android:value="\ 1234567890"/>

    The escaped space doesn’t appear in the value returned by get().

    I have no idea quite how this works, if I’m honest.

    If you want something documented and therefore more reliable you can always put your string value as a resource and refer to it:

    <meta-data android:name="foo" android:resource="@string/mynumber"/>
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