What is metadata ? And what is the use of it in android

Question

I am new to android and I have not seen or heard about meta data before. However I google it and search about it on YouTube that it is basically a information of your object

Answer 1

Let me give a simple example. It helps in finding additional information -- is the basic explanation of metadata.

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If I add the metadata that it's a phone number than you know or can figure out the geographical area from this. If I did not state that its a phone number than you do not have enough metadata to know what object is this. It could be a US SSN or it may be something else.

It's used in Android to add objects to the manifest, for example if using Google Service one would add it to designate the Google Services version the app binds to.