21. Split location into 2 TextViews

To achieve the desired UI mocks, we should add another TextView to the list item layout. The 2 location TextViews have view IDs “@+id/primary_location” and “@+id/location_offset”, respectively.

In earthquake_list_item.xml:

 <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:padding="16dp">

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/magnitude"
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_weight="1"
    tools:text="8.9" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/location_offset"
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_weight="1"
    tools:text="30km S of" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/primary_location"
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_weight="1"
    tools:text="San Francisco, CA" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/date"
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_weight="1"
    tools:text="Mar 6, 2010" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/time"
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_weight="1"
    tools:text="3:00 PM" />

 </LinearLayout>

Another change we need is to add “Near the” as a string resource for the locations that don’t have a location offset in km. This String doesn’t come from the original JSON response, and is added to satisfy our application’s UI design. We add the string in the res/values/strings.xml resource file, so we don’t hardcode English strings into the Java code.

In res/values/strings.xml:

 <!-- Default text to show with the earthquake location ("Near the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge")
  if no specific kilometer distance from the primary location is given [CHAR LIMIT=30] -->
 <string name="near_the">Near the</string>

Next, we need to modify the EarthquakeAdapter getView() method. At the bottom of this solution, there will be a link to the full EarthquakeAdapter class. As mentioned earlier, it’s okay if you didn’t implement this exactly like we did. Here’s one approach to creating the desired Strings.

First, we get the original location String from the Earthquake object and store that in a variable.

In EarthquakeAdapter getView():

 String originalLocation = currentEarthquake.getLocation();

We also create new variables (primary location and location offset) to store the resulting Strings.

 String primaryLocation;
 String locationOffset;

We will be using the split(String string) method in the String class to split the original string at the position where the text “ of “ occurs. The result will be a String containing the characters PRIOR to the “ of ” text and a String containing the characters AFTER the “ of “ text. Since we’ll frequently need to refer to the “ of “ text, we can define a static final String constant (that is a global variable) at the top of the EarthquakeAdapter class.

In EarthquakeAdapter:

 private static final String LOCATION_SEPARATOR = " of ";

Let’s dive into the details of the split. If the original location String is “74km NW of Rumoi, Japan” and we split the string using the LOCATION_SEPARATOR, then we will get a String array as the return value. In the String array, the 0th element of the array is “74km NW” and the 1st element of the array is “Rumoi, Japan”. Note that we also add the “ of “ text back to the 0th element of the array, so the locationOffset will say “74km NW of “.

There is still the issue that some location Strings don’t have a location offset. Hence, we should check if the original location String contains the LOCATION_SEPARATOR first, before we decide to split the string with that separator. If there is no LOCATION_SEPARATOR in the original location String, then we can assume that we should we use the “Near the” text as the location offset, and just use the original location String as the primary location. Here’s the code for the logic we just discussed.

In EarthquakeAdapter getView():

 if (originalLocation.contains(LOCATION_SEPARATOR)) {
    String[] parts = originalLocation.split(LOCATION_SEPARATOR);
    locationOffset = parts[0] + LOCATION_SEPARATOR;
    primaryLocation = parts[1];
 } else {
    locationOffset = getContext().getString(R.string.near_the);
    primaryLocation = originalLocation;
 }

Once we have the 2 separate Strings, we can display them in the 2 TextViews in the list item layout.

 TextView primaryLocationView = (TextView) listItemView.findViewById(R.id.primary_location);
 primaryLocationView.setText(primaryLocation);

 TextView locationOffsetView = (TextView) listItemView.findViewById(R.id.location_offset);
 locationOffsetView.setText(locationOffset);

Then we’re done! The code for the full EarthquakeAdapter class is linked here.

The app should look like this:

Note: An alternative approach to creating the primaryLocation and locationOffset Strings is to use the indexOf(String string) method and the substring(int start, int end) methods. First you would find the index of the “ of ” text. Then you would take a substring of the original location String from the 0th index to the location after the “ of ” text to produce a String that says “74km NW of”. Then you would create another substring on the original String going from the starting index (where we last left off) to the end of the original String, to produce a String that says “Rumoi, Japan”. This approach involves meticulously keeping track of the right indices within the String, so that may get more complicated than using the String split() method. Regardless, either way would work and there are also probably multiple other approaches too!