Introduction

This topic includes a terminology list associated with resources, and a series of examples of using resources in code. For a complete guide to the supported Android resource types, see Available Resources.

The Android resource system keeps track of all non-code assets associated with an application. You use the Resources class to access your application's resources; the Resources instance associated with your application can generally be found through Context.getResources().

An application's resources are compiled into the application binary at build time for you by the build system. To use a resource, you must install it correctly in the source tree and build your application. As part of the build process, symbols for each of the resources are generated that you can use in your source code -- this allows the compiler to verify that your application code matches up with the resources you defined.

The rest of this section is organized as a tutorial on how to use resources in an application.