Lookup map for converting Strings into Android `R.raw` integers

Question

I'm currently working on an Android app and I need to translate keys of type String to Integers which are determined at compile time of R.raw.
Right now I have found two ways of creating such a Map that holds all (needed) values of R.raw:

private static final Map<String, Integer> map = ImmutableMap.<String, Integer>builder()
 .put("...", R.raw.id)
 ... 
 .build();

and

private static final Map<String, Integer> map = new ArrayMap<>();
static {
 map.put("...", R.raw.id);
 ...
}

My questions are:

• Are there better ways of creating a Map to lookup keys and return values that are determined at compile time? I don't want to use reflection.
  and
• Which one of those ways would you prefer?

• user1281750: Because you are mentioning raw, I would suggest placing your files in assets folder, you can reference them by filename from the AssetManager. Then you can just use a List of Strings and you don't need to create a Map.
• GiantTree: @user1281750 you might add this as an answer.

Answer 1

There is not such thing as ArrayMap in standard Java. Therefore, I am just going to assume that you meant HashMap.

---

I would choose neither of those options. Depending on how many elements you need to insert into that Map, you could end up with a big chunk of code that is just a group of add calls.

I recommend creating two arrays: one of the Strings, and one of the Integers.

Then, all you have to do is create a loop that inserts all the values into the map.

Here is what I came up with:

String[] foos = {...};
Integer[] bars = {...};
Map<String, Integer> map = new HashMap<String, Integer>();
for(int i = 0, length = foo.length; i < length; i++) {
 map.put(foos[i], bars[i]);
}

• GiantTree: ArrayMap is a more memory efficient HashMap designed for Android. I'm currently checking user1281750's approach, but your's might come in handy, when you can't move resources to assets (in Android).
• SirPython: @GiantTree Ah, I see. I was wondering where ArrayMap was coming from (I am not experienced with Android).