Save some information in Android's tag

Question

I want to know if it is good practice to save some metadata to the View's tag. I have this code:

TableRow file = new TableRow(getActivity());
file.setTag(<Object_with_data>);

And in the OnClickListener:

file.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            Object_with_data instanse1 = 
                    (Object_with_data) view.getTag();
        }
});

Basically that's fine. I wouldn't make those objects to complex though, usually it's just an identifier, like a String or Integer. — Blacklight, Oct 29 '14 at 11:25

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

Yes I think it is a good practice. According to the official doc :

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.html#setTag(java.lang.Object)

A tag can be used to mark a view in its hierarchy and does not have to be unique within the hierarchy. Tags can also be used to store data within a view without resorting to another data structure.

and another question on StackOverflow :

What is the main purpose of setTag() getTag() methods of View?

It's basically a way for views to have memories.

The View's tag seems to be created to allows you to actually store metadata.

Save some information in Android's tag

1 Answers1