Are Parameters in Strings.Xml Possible

Are parameters in strings.xml possible?

Yes, just format your strings in the standard String.format() way.

See the method Context.getString(int, Object...) and the Android or Java Formatter documentation.

In your case, the string definition would be:

<string name="timeFormat">%1$d minutes ago</string>

Is it possible to have placeholders in strings.xml for runtime values?

Formatting and Styling

Yes, see the following from String Resources: Formatting and Styling

If you need to format your strings using String.format(String, Object...), then you can do so by putting your format arguments in the string resource. For example, with the following resource:

<string name="welcome_messages">Hello, %1$s! You have %2$d new messages.</string>

In this example, the format string has two arguments: %1$s is a string and %2$d is a decimal number. You can format the string with arguments from your application like this:

Resources res = getResources();
String text = String.format(res.getString(R.string.welcome_messages), username, mailCount);

Basic Usage

Note that getString has an overload that uses the string as a format string:

String text = res.getString(R.string.welcome_messages, username, mailCount);

Plurals

If you need to handle plurals, use this:

<plurals name="welcome_messages">
    <item quantity="one">Hello, %1$s! You have a new message.</item>
    <item quantity="other">Hello, %1$s! You have %2$d new messages.</item>
</plurals>

The first mailCount param is used to decide which format to use (single or plural), the other params are your substitutions:

Resources res = getResources();
String text = res.getQuantityString(R.plurals.welcome_messages, mailCount, username, mailCount);

See String Resources: Plurals for more details.

Call variables in string.xml

In your xml file string.xml :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
     <string name="correct">Good job! The answer was %1$s\n
               You made %2$s guesses.\n
               Restart the app to try again.</string>
</resources>

If you want to put an other value in the text, you increment %2$s -> %3$s , etc ...

Then you can use it like in java like that :

Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, getString(R.string.correct, comp, guesses), 
            Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

Use Strings with placeholder in XML layout android

You can use something like this.
Write your string in your (strings.xml) with declaring a string variable (%1$s) inside it. For decimal, we use (%2$d).

<string name="my_string">My string name is %1$s</string>

And inside the android code (yourFile.java), use this string where you want it.

String.format(getResources().getString(R.string.my_string), stringName);

This is not a good answer but it may help you get some idea to get going.

Thanks.

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