How to generate Styled text for TextView while assembling string?

Question

I have a TextView that will hold a styled, multiline string. This text is generated line by line as the data is drawn from different sources bit by bit. As I grab each field, I add a Bold header to the TextView on a new line, then I add the data for that field in italics on a new line.

Example formatting:

Due Date
July 22, 2010
Course
CSC 350

I could set the styling like this:

Spannable str = (Spannable) textview.getText();

str.setSpan(new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface.Bold), 0, 8, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
str.setSpan(new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface.Italic), 8, 21, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
str.setSpan(new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface.Bold), 21, 27, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
str.setSpan(new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface.Italic), 27, 33, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

But that requires knowing the length of each section of text at runtime which is simply unmanageable since there is a variable number of data fields that could be added to the textview.

How can I add the styling as I'm adding each piece of text instead of after all the text has been added?

Answer 1

Mark your string up with <b> and <i> tags as appropriate and then use the Html.fromHtml(String) to return the Spannable you are looking for.