Inflator in Android Application Development

Question

Can anybody please tell What Inflator is and how it is being used in an Android application?

I don\'t know the exact use of it and Why it is being used.

Answer 1

My preferred way to handle inflation:

//First get our inflater ready, you'll need the application/activity context for this
LayoutInflater mInflater;
mInflater = LayoutInflater.from(mContext);

//Inflate the view from xml
View newView = mInflater.inflate(R.layout.my_new_layout, null);

//Then you'll want to add it to an existing layout object
mMainLayout.add(newView);

//Or perhaps just set it as the main view (though this method can also 
// inflate the XML for you if you give it the resource id directly)
setContentView(newView);

Basically, you use it to inflate existing xml layouts at runtime. Usually you go ahead and insert those new views into previously defined ViewGroups or List objects.