get activityInfo metaData in onCreate method

Question

I need to retrieve a value from the AndroidManifest.xml file, stored as a meta data:

<meta-data android:value="3" android:name="myInterestingValue" />

In the onCreate method, I call the following method:

private Object getMetaData(String name) {
    try {
        ActivityInfo ai = getPackageManager().getActivityInfo(this.getComponentName(), PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);
        Bundle metaData = ai.metaData; 
        if(metaData == null) {
            debug("metaData is null. Unable to get meta data for " + name);
        }
        else {
            Object value = (Object)metaData.get(name);
            return value;
        }
    } catch (NameNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return null;
}

But the metaData is always null. Is it impossible to access the metaData in the onCreate method? i.e. The activity has not been fully initialized yet.

score 26 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 27 '16 at 11:25

26

You will need to use the flags GET_ACTIVITIES and GET_META_DATA.

ActivityInfo ai = getPackageManager()
        .getActivityInfo(this.getComponentName(), PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);

edited Jan 27 '16 at 11:25

TWiStErRob

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answered Nov 10 '11 at 04:18

jasonj

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1

Thanks, this helped. You have a typo, should be : ActivityInfo app = getPackageManager().getActivityInfo( this.getComponentName(), PackageManager.GET_ACTIVITIES|PackageManager.GET_META_DATA); – ajh158 Nov 18 '11 at 22:06

James H. Hill · Answer 2 · 2014-05-03T04:39:39.193

1

If you are interested, android-metadata is a framework that makes it easier to get metadata from the Android manifest. The way you would get the meta-data above using android-metadata is:

int val = ManifestMetadata.get (context).getValue ("myInterestingValue", Integer.class);

Full disclosure: I'm the creator of android-metadata.

edited May 03 '14 at 04:39

answered Mar 12 '14 at 19:17

James H. Hill

41
5

Is it merged in androidannotations (https://github.com/excilys/androidannotations) framework ? – mrroboaat Aug 01 '14 at 09:08

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 11 '18 at 15:58

1

I've tried jasonj's answer but it doesn't work. To retrieve meta-data from manifest file, I must get the following code

ApplicationInfo ai = getPackageManager().getApplicationInfo(getPackageName(), PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);
Bundle bundle = ai.metaData;

OR the Kotlin version:

val ai = packageManager.getApplicationInfo(packageName, PackageManager.GET_META_DATA)
val bundel = ai?.metaData

edited Mar 11 '18 at 15:58

zaxy78

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answered Aug 01 '14 at 09:03

mrroboaat

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getApplicationInfo is used to get metadata from the element. To get meta-data from element you have to use getActivityInfo as described – Fernando Gallego Aug 05 '14 at 09:31

get activityInfo metaData in onCreate method

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