Apps Best method for declaring / populating arrays

[plebtastic]

Hi,

In terms of efficiency, is it better to use arrays programmatically or through calls to xml files.

I'd prefer to use xmls for organisational reasons, but is there much of a performance hit.

 

[jonbonazza]

Populating via xml will have an overhead and be a little worse in terms of performance than programmatic population, but not by much. Depending on the problem and the size of the data set, I would say that xml would be the better choice.


Actually, are you referring to your own xml files or the built-in android xml arrays?

If you use android's built-in arrays.xml stuff, there won't be any overhead at runtime. android interperates the xml at compile time and generates the array for you.

 

[plebtastic]

Populating via xml will have an overhead and be a little worse in terms of performance than programmatic population, but not by much. Depending on the problem and the size of the data set, I would say that xml would be the better choice.


Actually, are you referring to your own xml files or the built-in android xml arrays?

If you use android's built-in arrays.xml stuff, there won't be any overhead at runtime. android interperates the xml at compile time and generates the array for you.

Thanks.

I usually create an 'arrays.xml' file and put all arrays in there.
Is this considered a built-in xml?

Eclipse creates strings.xml and values.xml by default, so I'm not sure what the built-in ones you refer to are!

 

[jonbonazza]

yes, I consider arrays.xml a built in xml as it is interperated at comile time by the ADT.