How do I check to see if a resource exists in Android

Question

Is there a built in way to check to see if a resource exists or am I left doing something like the following:

boolean result;
int test = mContext.getResource         


        

Answer 1

The try/catch block in your code is totally useless (and wrong), since neither getResources() nor getIdentifier(...) throw an Exception.

So, getIdentifier(...) will already return you all you need. Indeed, if it will return 0, then the resource you are looking for does not exist. Otherwise, it will return the associated resource identifier ("0 is not a valid resource ID", indeed).

Here the correct code:

int checkExistence = mContext.getResources().getIdentifier("my_resource_name", "drawable", mContext.getPackageName());

if ( checkExistence != 0 ) {  // the resource exists...
    result = true;
}
else {  // checkExistence == 0  // the resource does NOT exist!!
    result = false;
}