android - set ID to the view programmatically

Question

I'm adding Buttons programmatically and the number of Buttons depends on some conditions. To add rules for RelativeLayout.LayoutParams that Buttons be aligned to the top of each other I need to set their IDs. All the answers from 2-3 years ago say that setId(int) is okay (e.g. setId(1)) but now it's forbidden (UPD. it's not ok only with int literals. With int variables everything is ok. Wonder why). How to do it nowadays?

Answer 1

According to the API it's not forbidden or deprecated. Here is the best way of using it.

1. Create res/values/ids.xml and define

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <resources>
           <item type="id" name="button1" />
           <item type="id" name="button2" />
   </resources>
   

2. once you have that, you can than use setId

   button1.setId(R.id.button1);
   button2.setId(R.id.button2);
   

Answer 2

Since you said you can have any number of buttons then you can set id for each button using -

button.setId(View.generateViewId()); //Works for API 17 and above

If minSdk is below 17, then you can use -

 button.setId(counter++); //Each time counter will be increment giving a unique id