Android Kotlin : Sort data in adapter and keeping translation

Question

I'm using the following adapter to create a Spinner dropdown. My adapter only display one text for each item. This item is translated. This code works well but at the end the spinner contains values that are not sorted alphabetically.

How can I modify the code to sort the data and keeping the translation ?

Activity.kt:

val spinner: Spinner = findViewById(R.id.units_cars)
val carsArray = resources.getStringArray(R.array.cars_array)
spinner.adapter = CarsDropdownAdapter(this, carsArray)

cars-array.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string-array name="units_array">
        <item>CAR_LABEL1</item>
        <item>CAR_LABEL2</item>
        <item>CAR_LABEL3</item>
    </string-array>
</resources>

CarsDropdownAdapter.kt:

class CarsDropdownAdapter(ctx: Context, private val cars: Array<String>) : ArrayAdapter<String>(ctx, 0, cars) {

    override fun getView(position: Int, recycledView: View?, parent: ViewGroup): View {
        return this.createView(position, recycledView, parent)
    }

    override fun getDropDownView(position: Int, recycledView: View?, parent: ViewGroup): View {
        return this.createView(position, recycledView, parent)
    }

    private fun createView(position: Int, recycledView: View?, parent: ViewGroup): View {
        val carLabel = getItem(position)
        val view = recycledView ?: LayoutInflater.from(parent.context).inflate(R.layout.item_car_dropdown, parent, false)

        // Used to get the translation but at the end the spinner contains Data that are not sorted alphabetically !
        view.car_name_dropdown.text = context.getString(parent.context.resources.getIdentifier(carLabel, "string", context?.packageName))

        return view
    }

}

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 03 '20 at 12:52

1

You can sort the string array before creating the Adapter:

val spinner: Spinner = findViewById(R.id.units_cars)
val carsArray = resources.getStringArray(R.array.cars_array)
carsArray.sort()
spinner.adapter = CarsDropdownAdapter(this, carsArray)

The sort implementation for Strings sorts them alphabetically

answered Mar 03 '20 at 12:52

Juan Cruz Soler

8,172
5
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This code will work but will sort the carLabel whereas the translation is contained inside a string.xml file. – wawanopoulos Mar 03 '20 at 12:59
You should have one array for each translation file, then `carsArray` will already contain translated strings – Juan Cruz Soler Mar 03 '20 at 13:51

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 03 '20 at 12:57

0

Use the following code :

val spinner: Spinner = findViewById(R.id.units_cars)
val carsArray = resources.getStringArray(R.array.cars_array)
Collections.sort(carsArray)
spinner.adapter = CarsDropdownAdapter(this, carsArray)

Line Collections.sort(carsArray) will sort the array alphabatically.

answered Mar 03 '20 at 12:57

Vir Rajpurohit

1,869
1
10
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This code will work but will sort the carLabel whereas the translation is contained inside a string.xml file. – wawanopoulos Mar 03 '20 at 12:59
then why you are not using translated array directly? – Vir Rajpurohit Mar 03 '20 at 13:02
It could be a solution but it means that I will have a translated array in each language ? – wawanopoulos Mar 03 '20 at 13:02
Can this https://stackoverflow.com/a/12889868/6997819 help you in anyway? – Vir Rajpurohit Mar 03 '20 at 13:09

Android Kotlin : Sort data in adapter and keeping translation

2 Answers2