Combining Spannable with String.format()

I have created a version of String.format that works with spannables. Download it and use it just like the normal version. In your case you would put the spans around the format specifiers (possibly using strings.xml). In the output, they would be around whatever those specifiers were replaced with.

Using Spannables like that is a headache -- this is probably the most straightforward way around:

String s = "The cold hand reaches for the %1$s %2$s Ellesse's";
String old = "<font color=\"blue\">old</font>"; 
String tan = "<strike>tan</strike>"; 
String formatted = String.format(s,old,tan); //The cold hand reaches for the <font color="blue">old</font> <strike>tan</strike> Ellesse's

Spannable spannable = Html.fromHtml(formatted);

Problem: this does not put in a StrikethroughSpan. To make the StrikethroughSpan, we borrow a custom TagHandler from this question.

Spannable spannable = Html.fromHtml(text,null,new MyHtmlTagHandler());

---

MyTagHandler:

public class MyHtmlTagHandler implements Html.TagHandler {
    public void handleTag(boolean opening, String tag, Editable output,
                          XMLReader xmlReader) {
        if (tag.equalsIgnoreCase("strike") || tag.equals("s")) {
            processStrike(opening, output);
        }
    }
    private void processStrike(boolean opening, Editable output) {
        int len = output.length();
        if (opening) {
            output.setSpan(new StrikethroughSpan(), len, len, Spannable.SPAN_MARK_MARK);
        } else {
            Object obj = getLast(output, StrikethroughSpan.class);
            int where = output.getSpanStart(obj);
            output.removeSpan(obj);
            if (where != len) {
                output.setSpan(new StrikethroughSpan(), where, len, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
            }
        }
    }

    private Object getLast(Editable text, Class kind) {
        Object[] objs = text.getSpans(0, text.length(), kind);
        if (objs.length == 0) {
            return null;
        } else {
            for (int i = objs.length; i > 0; i--) {
                if (text.getSpanFlags(objs[i - 1]) == Spannable.SPAN_MARK_MARK) {
                    return objs[i - 1];
                }
            }
            return null;
        }
    }
}