Table

TableLayout is a ViewGroup that displays child View elements in rows and columns.

Note: For better performance and tooling support, you should instead build your layout with ConstraintLayout.

TableLayout positions its children into rows and columns. TableLayout containers do not display border lines for their rows, columns, or cells. The table will have as many columns as the row with the most cells. A table can leave cells empty. Cells can span multiple columns, as they can in HTML. You can span columns by using the span field in the TableRow.LayoutParams class.

Note: Cells cannot span multiple rows.

TableRow objects are the child views of a TableLayout (each TableRow defines a single row in the table). Each row has zero or more cells, each of which is defined by any kind of other View. So, the cells of a row may be composed of a variety of View objects, like ImageView or TextView objects. A cell may also be a ViewGroup object (for example, you can nest another TableLayout as a cell).

The following sample layout has two rows and two cells in each. The accompanying screenshot shows the result, with cell borders displayed as dotted lines (added for visual effect).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TableLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:stretchColumns="1">
    <TableRow>
        <TextView
            android:text="@string/table_layout_4_open"
            android:padding="3dip" />
        <TextView
            android:text="@string/table_layout_4_open_shortcut"
            android:gravity="right"
            android:padding="3dip" />
    </TableRow>

    <TableRow>
        <TextView
            android:text="@string/table_layout_4_save"
            android:padding="3dip" />
        <TextView
            android:text="@string/table_layout_4_save_shortcut"
            android:gravity="right"
            android:padding="3dip" />
    </TableRow>
</TableLayout>

Columns can be hidden, marked to stretch and fill the available screen space, or can be marked as shrinkable to force the column to shrink until the table fits the screen. See the TableLayout reference documentation for more details.

Example

1. Start a new project named HelloTableLayout.
2. Open the res/layout/main.xml file and insert the following:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <TableLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
       android:layout_width="match_parent"
       android:layout_height="match_parent"
       android:stretchColumns="1">
   
       <TableRow>
           <TextView
               android:layout_column="1"
               android:text="Open..."
               android:padding="3dip" />
           <TextView
               android:text="Ctrl-O"
               android:gravity="right"
               android:padding="3dip" />
       </TableRow>
   
       <TableRow>
           <TextView
               android:layout_column="1"
               android:text="Save..."
               android:padding="3dip" />
           <TextView
               android:text="Ctrl-S"
               android:gravity="right"
               android:padding="3dip" />
       </TableRow>
   
       <TableRow>
           <TextView
               android:layout_column="1"
               android:text="Save As..."
               android:padding="3dip" />
           <TextView
               android:text="Ctrl-Shift-S"
               android:gravity="right"
               android:padding="3dip" />
       </TableRow>
   
       <View
           android:layout_height="2dip"
           android:background="#FF909090" />
   
       <TableRow>
           <TextView
               android:text="X"
               android:padding="3dip" />
           <TextView
               android:text="Import..."
               android:padding="3dip" />
       </TableRow>
   
       <TableRow>
           <TextView
               android:text="X"
               android:padding="3dip" />
           <TextView
               android:text="Export..."
               android:padding="3dip" />
           <TextView
               android:text="Ctrl-E"
               android:gravity="right"
               android:padding="3dip" />
       </TableRow>
   
       <View
           android:layout_height="2dip"
           android:background="#FF909090" />
   
       <TableRow>
           <TextView
               android:layout_column="1"
               android:text="Quit"
               android:padding="3dip" />
       </TableRow>
   </TableLayout>
   

   Notice how this resembles the structure of an HTML table. The TableLayout element is like the HTML <table> element; TableRow is like a ><tr>> element; but for the cells, you can use any kind of View element. In this example, a TextView is used for each cell. In between some of the rows, there is also a basic View, which is used to draw a horizontal line.

3. Make sure your HelloTableLayout Activity loads this layout in the onCreate() method:

   Kotlin

   override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
       setContentView(R.layout.main)
   }
   

   Java

   public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       setContentView(R.layout.main);
   }
   

   The setContentView(int) method loads the layout file for the Activity, specified by the resource ID — R.layout.main refers to the res/layout/main.xml layout file.

4. Run the application.

You should see the following: