How to lay out Views in RelativeLayout programmatically?

I'm trying to achieve the following programmatically (rather than declaratively via XML):

<RelativeLayout...>
   <TextView ...
      android:id="@+id/label1" />
   <TextView ...
      android:id="@+id/label2"
      android:layout_below: "@id/label1" />
</RelativeLayout>

In other words, how do I make the second TextView appear below the first one, but I want to do it in code:

RelativeLayout layout = new RelativeLayout(this);
TextView label1 = new TextView(this);
TextView label2 = new TextView(this);
...
layout.addView(label1);
layout.addView(label2);
setContentView(layout);

Update:

Thanks, TreeUK. I understand the general direction, but it still doesn't work - "B" overlaps "A". What am I doing wrong?

RelativeLayout layout = new RelativeLayout(this);
TextView tv1 = new TextView(this);
tv1.setText("A");

TextView tv2 = new TextView(this);
tv2.setText("B");
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams lp = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(
        RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT);
lp.addRule(RelativeLayout.RIGHT_OF, tv1.getId());

layout.addView(tv1);        
layout.addView(tv2, lp);

Solution 1:

From what I've been able to piece together, you have to add the view using LayoutParams.

LinearLayout linearLayout = new LinearLayout(this);

RelativeLayout.LayoutParams relativeParams = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(
        LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);
relativeParams.addRule(RelativeLayout.ALIGN_PARENT_TOP);

parentView.addView(linearLayout, relativeParams);

All credit to sechastain, to relatively position your items programmatically you have to assign ids to them.

TextView tv1 = new TextView(this);
tv1.setId(1);
TextView tv2 = new TextView(this);
tv2.setId(2);

Then addRule(RelativeLayout.RIGHT_OF, tv1.getId());

Solution 2:

Cut the long story short: With relative layout you position elements inside the layout.

create a new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams
```
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams lp = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(...)
```
(whatever... fill parent or wrap content, absolute numbers if you must, or reference to an XML resource)

Add rules: Rules refer to the parent or to other "brothers" in the hierarchy.

lp.addRule(RelativeLayout.BELOW, someOtherView.getId())
lp.addRule(RelativeLayout.ALIGN_PARENT_LEFT)

Just apply the layout params: The most 'healthy' way to do that is:
```
parentLayout.addView(myView, lp)
```

Watch out: Don't change layout from the layout callbacks. It is tempting to do so because this is when views get their actual sizes. However, in that case, unexpected results are expected.

Solution 3:

Just spent 4 hours with this problem. Finally realized that you must not use zero as view id. You would think that it is allowed as NO_ID == -1, but things tend to go haywire if you give it to your view...

Solution 4:

Android 22 minimal runnable example

enter image description here

Source:

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.RelativeLayout;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class Main extends Activity {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        final RelativeLayout relativeLayout = new RelativeLayout(this);

        final TextView tv1;
        tv1 = new TextView(this);
        tv1.setText("tv1");
        // Setting an ID is mandatory.
        tv1.setId(View.generateViewId());
        relativeLayout.addView(tv1);

        // tv2.
        final TextView tv2;
        tv2 = new TextView(this);
        tv2.setText("tv2");
        RelativeLayout.LayoutParams lp = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(
                ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT,
                ViewGroup.LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT);
        lp.addRule(RelativeLayout.BELOW, tv1.getId());
        relativeLayout.addView(tv2, lp);

        // tv3.
        final TextView tv3;
        tv3 = new TextView(this);
        tv3.setText("tv3");
        RelativeLayout.LayoutParams lp2 = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(
            ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT,
            ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT
        );
        lp2.addRule(RelativeLayout.BELOW, tv2.getId());
        relativeLayout.addView(tv3, lp2);

        this.setContentView(relativeLayout);
    }
}

Works with the default project generated by android create project .... GitHub repository with minimal build code.