Android Spinner Example to Load JSON using Volley

In this tutorial we will create an Android Spinner Example Application. So the first thing probably you are thinking is What is Spinner? Actually Spinner is used to show a dropdown list. So in this Android Spinner Example Tutorial we will create a spinner. And in the spinner we will show the values from MySQL database.

Android Spinner Example Video

Before going further you can check out this video to see the final output of the app we are creating.

Now if you wanna create the same, lets begin this Android Spinner Example Tutorial. So in this tutorial we will retrieve data from our webserver using JSON String. I have my URL that will give me a JSON string by fetching values from MySQL database.

http://simplifiedcoding.16mb.com/Spinner/json.php

The above link will give us the following json string.

{

"result":[

{

"username":"faiz",

"name":"Faiz Khan",

"course":"BCA",

"session":"2014-2017"

{

"username":"belal",

"name":"Belal Khan",

"course":"MCA",

"session":"2015-2018"

{

"username":"ramiz",

"name":"Ramiz Khan",

"course":"MBA",

"session":"2015-2017"

{

"username":"zafar",

"name":"Zafar Khan",

"course":"MBA",

"session":"2014-2016"

}

]

}

You can create your own url or you can also use mine. Lets move to Android Studio now.

Creating Android Spinner Example Application

Open Android Studio and create new Project.
For this tutorial we will use volley library so add the following code in you build.gradle dependencies

dependencies {

compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])

testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'

compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.1.0'

//Volley Library

compile 'com.mcxiaoke.volley:library-aar:1.0.0'

}

Now sync your project with gradle.
Come to activity_main.xml and create the following layout.

android spinner example layout — Android Spinner Example Layout

In the above layout we have a Spinner and 3 TextViews. When user will select an item from the Spinner the details will be shown to the TextView.
You can use the following xml code for creating the above layout. Define Spinner and 3 TextViews.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent"

android:orientation="vertical"

android:layout_height="match_parent" android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"

android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"

android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"

android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context=".MainActivity">

<Spinner

android:layout_width="match_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:id="@+id/spinner" />

<TableLayout

android:layout_width="match_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content">

<TextView

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:textStyle="bold"

android:layout_marginRight="20dp"

android:layout_marginLeft="10dp"

android:text="Name"

<TextView

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:textStyle="bold"

android:layout_marginRight="20dp"

android:text="Course"

<TextView

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:textStyle="bold"

android:layout_marginRight="20dp"

android:text="Session"

</TableRow>

<TextView

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:layout_marginRight="20dp"

android:layout_marginLeft="10dp"

android:id="@+id/textViewName"

<TextView

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:layout_marginRight="20dp"

android:id="@+id/textViewCourse"

<TextView

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:layout_marginRight="20dp"

android:id="@+id/textViewSession"

</TableRow>

</TableLayout>

</LinearLayout>

Create a class named Config.java and write the following code.

package net.simplifiedcoding.spinnerexample;

/**

* Created by Belal on 10/31/2015.

public class Config {

//JSON URL

public static final String DATA_URL = "http://simplifiedcoding.16mb.com/Spinner/json.php";

//Tags used in the JSON String

public static final String TAG_USERNAME = "username";

public static final String TAG_NAME = "name";

public static final String TAG_COURSE = "course";

public static final String TAG_SESSION = "session";

//JSON array name

public static final String JSON_ARRAY = "result";

}

Now come to MainActivity.java and write the following code.

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package net.simplifiedcoding.spinnerexample;

import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.view.View;

import android.widget.AdapterView;

import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;

import android.widget.Spinner;

import android.widget.TextView;

import com.android.volley.RequestQueue;

import com.android.volley.Response;

import com.android.volley.VolleyError;

import com.android.volley.toolbox.StringRequest;

import com.android.volley.toolbox.Volley;

import org.json.JSONArray;

import org.json.JSONException;

import org.json.JSONObject;

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements Spinner.OnItemSelectedListener{

//Declaring an Spinner

private Spinner spinner;

//An ArrayList for Spinner Items

private ArrayList<String> students;

//JSON Array

private JSONArray result;

//TextViews to display details

private TextView textViewName;

private TextView textViewCourse;

private TextView textViewSession;

@Override

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

//Initializing the ArrayList

students = new ArrayList<String>();

//Initializing Spinner

spinner = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner);

//Adding an Item Selected Listener to our Spinner

//As we have implemented the class Spinner.OnItemSelectedListener to this class iteself we are passing this to setOnItemSelectedListener

spinner.setOnItemSelectedListener(this);

//Initializing TextViews

textViewName = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textViewName);

textViewCourse = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textViewCourse);

textViewSession = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textViewSession);

//This method will fetch the data from the URL

getData();

}

private void getData(){

//Creating a string request

StringRequest stringRequest = new StringRequest(Config.DATA_URL,

new Response.Listener<String>() {

@Override

public void onResponse(String response) {

JSONObject j = null;

try {

//Parsing the fetched Json String to JSON Object

j = new JSONObject(response);

//Storing the Array of JSON String to our JSON Array

result = j.getJSONArray(Config.JSON_ARRAY);

//Calling method getStudents to get the students from the JSON Array

getStudents(result);

} catch (JSONException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

new Response.ErrorListener() {

@Override

public void onErrorResponse(VolleyError error) {

}

});

//Creating a request queue

RequestQueue requestQueue = Volley.newRequestQueue(this);

//Adding request to the queue

requestQueue.add(stringRequest);

}

private void getStudents(JSONArray j){

//Traversing through all the items in the json array

for(int i=0;i<j.length();i++){

try {

//Getting json object

JSONObject json = j.getJSONObject(i);

//Adding the name of the student to array list

students.add(json.getString(Config.TAG_USERNAME));

} catch (JSONException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

//Setting adapter to show the items in the spinner

spinner.setAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(MainActivity.this, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item, students));

}

//Method to get student name of a particular position

private String getName(int position){

String name="";

try {

//Getting object of given index

JSONObject json = result.getJSONObject(position);

//Fetching name from that object

name = json.getString(Config.TAG_NAME);

} catch (JSONException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

//Returning the name

return name;

}

//Doing the same with this method as we did with getName()

private String getCourse(int position){

String course="";

try {

JSONObject json = result.getJSONObject(position);

course = json.getString(Config.TAG_COURSE);

} catch (JSONException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

return course;

}

//Doing the same with this method as we did with getName()

private String getSession(int position){

String session="";

try {

JSONObject json = result.getJSONObject(position);

session = json.getString(Config.TAG_SESSION);

} catch (JSONException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

return session;

}

//this method will execute when we pic an item from the spinner

@Override

public void onItemSelected(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long id) {

//Setting the values to textviews for a selected item

textViewName.setText(getName(position));

textViewCourse.setText(getCourse(position));

textViewSession.setText(getSession(position));

}

//When no item is selected this method would execute

@Override

public void onNothingSelected(AdapterView<?> parent) {

textViewName.setText("");

textViewCourse.setText("");

textViewSession.setText("");

}

Finally before running this Android Spinner Example , add internet permission to your manifest file.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

Now run your application.

Bingo! Our Android Spinner Example App is working absolutely fine. You can also download my source code from below.

Get source of Android Spinner Example

[sociallocker id=1372] [download id=”1467″] [/sociallocker]

So thats all for this Android Spinner Example Tutorial friend. This was a very simple android spinner example. Please do comment if you are having any trouble or queries. Thank You 🙂