Question

Is there a simple way to get the user’s selection (the string value) from a spinner ? I am trying to avoid setting a listener on it and writing an onItemSelected() method, because I don’t need anything to happen when the user makes the selection. Rather, I’m trying to set up a button click to capture the selection and send it in a bundle to another activity. My spinner is being filled by a cursor. Here is my code, and it crashes on the line:

String choice = this.adapter.getItem(index).toString();

The code:

public class MainActivity extends BaseActivity
{   
static final String TAG = "MainActivity";
static final String[] FROM = {CreateDB.C_CATEGORY};
static final int[] TO = {android.R.id.text1};
CreateDB dbBuilder;
SQLiteDatabase database;
Cursor cursor;
SimpleCursorAdapter adapter;
Spinner spinnerLocal;

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) 
{
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);

    dbBuilder = new CreateDB(this);
    database = dbBuilder.getReadableDatabase();         
    cursor = database.query(CreateDB.TABLE, null, null, null, null, null, CreateDB.C_CATEGORY + " DESC");
    startManagingCursor(cursor);

    SimpleCursorAdapter adapter = new SimpleCursorAdapter(this, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item, cursor, FROM, TO);
    adapter.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);

    Spinner spinnerRemote = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner2);

    spinnerRemote.setAdapter(adapter);
}   

public void createReview(View view)
{
            //createReview runs when a button is clicked
    Spinner spinner = (Spinner)findViewById(R.id.spinner2);

            int index = spinner.getSelectedItemPosition();

    String choice = this.adapter.getItem(index).toString();

    Intent postReview = new Intent(this,Post.class);
    Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
    bundle.putString("CATEGORY", choice);
    postReview.putExtras(bundle);
    startActivity(postReview);
}

Answer 1

Is there a simple way to get the user’s selection (the string value) from a spinner ?

You don’t have a “string value”.

You used a SimpleCursorAdapter. Your “value”, therefore, is a Cursor.

You can call getSelectedItem() on the Spinner, which (for a CursorAdapter-backed Spinner) should return a Cursor positioned on the selected row. From there, read out whatever values you want via getString() and kin.