android meaning of @null in xml attribute

Question

I found the following attribute in one xml layout:

android:background=\"@null\"

What is the meaning of @null? What is the differen

Answer 1

If I remember correctly, omitting the background attribute sets a default background. However, explicitly setting background to "@null" removes the background, causing whatever is below the element to be shown. In particular, if you for instance set the background of a Button to null, the border of the button will also be gone (and the button effectively will not really look like a button at all).