Android Spinner Example

Android Spinner is like the combox box of AWT or Swing. It can be used to display the multiple options to the user in which only one item can be selected by the user.

Android spinner is like the drop down menu with multiple values from which the end user can select only one value.

Android spinner is associated with AdapterView. So you need to use one of the adapter classes with spinner.

Android Spinner class is the subclass of AsbSpinner class.

Android Spinner Example

In this example, we are going to display the country list. You need to use ArrayAdapter class to store the country list.

Let's see the simple example of spinner in android.

activity_main.xml

Drag the Spinner from the pallete, now the activity_main.xml file will like this:

File: activity_main.xml

1. <RelativeLayout xmlns:androclass="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"  
2.     xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"  
3.     android:layout_width="match_parent"  
4.     android:layout_height="match_parent"  
5.     tools:context=".MainActivity" >  
6.   
7.     <Spinner  
8.         android:id="@+id/spinner1"  
9.         android:layout_width="wrap_content"  
10.         android:layout_height="wrap_content"  
11.         android:layout_alignParentTop="true"  
12.         android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"  
13.         android:layout_marginTop="83dp" />  
14.   
15. </RelativeLayout>  

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Activity class

Let's write the code to display item on the spinner and perform event handling.

File: MainActivity.java

1. package com.example.spinner;  
2. import android.app.Activity;  
3. import android.os.Bundle;  
4. import android.view.Menu;  
5. import android.view.View;  
6. import android.widget.AdapterView;  
7. import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;  
8. import android.widget.Spinner;  
9. import android.widget.TextView;  
10. import android.widget.Toast;  
11.   
12. public class MainActivity extends Activity implements  
13. AdapterView.OnItemSelectedListener {  
14.   
15.     String[] country = { "India", "USA", "China", "Japan", "Other",  };  
16.   
17.     @Override  
18.     protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {  
19.         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);  
20.         setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);  
21.         //Getting the instance of Spinner and applying OnItemSelectedListener on it  
22.         Spinner spin = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner1);  
23.         spin.setOnItemSelectedListener(this);  
24.           
25.         //Creating the ArrayAdapter instance having the country list  
26.         ArrayAdapter aa = new ArrayAdapter(this,android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item,country);  
27.         aa.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);  
28.         //Setting the ArrayAdapter data on the Spinner  
29.         spin.setAdapter(aa);  
30.     }  
31.   
32.       
33.     //Performing action onItemSelected and onNothing selected  
34.     @Override  
35.     public void onItemSelected(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1, int position,long id) {  
36.         Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),country[position] ,Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();  
37.     }  
38.   
39.     @Override  
40.     public void onNothingSelected(AdapterView<?> arg0) {  
41.         // TODO Auto-generated method stub  
42.           
43.     }  
44.   
45.     @Override  
46.     public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {  
47.         // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.  
48.         getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);  
49.         return true;  
50.     }  
51. }  

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Output: