android - What EXACTLY does Resources$NotFoundException mean? -

i posted resources$notfoundexception bug here , got usual generic suggestions deleting "gen" folder, doing clean, doing refresh, etc, etc. there hundreds (thousands?) of other programmers getting same exception , getting same suggestions on s.o. , web. can't seem find anyplace describes error means.

the documentation vague: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/res/resources.notfoundexception.html

resources$notfoundexception runtime error presumably it's looking in apk file.

1. how resources built apk file @ build-time? start xml file , what...?
2. how referenced @ runtime?
3. what relationship between resource id see in debugger , how it's identified in apk file?
4. what (windows) tools can use examine apk file find these resource myself?

thanks in advance answers of these questions!

ps - if think have answer original bug please post there , not thread; different question.

1. resource can packaged in various ways raw assets, optimized images packaged byte data. zipped 1 apk. id of resource helps finding back. during development, build tool (aapt) continually scan res directory xml, images etc , generate numeric constants in r.java. read detail android's build process.

2. at runtime resources instance decides for, depending on whether of method called. numeric id helps query resource mapping , find correct one. actual data loading handled native low-level code.

3. debugger can show objects , fields. find out missing read error message notfoundexception traces in logcat. lists hex value of resource id.

4. apktool lets deflate apk file , re-construct res directory.

update:

how resources packaged:

if have apk , want see full resource table run aapt tool in sdk as:

 aapt list -v myapp.apk 

it show details as:

archive:  ./myapp.apk  length   method    size  ratio   offset      date  time  crc-32    name --------  ------  ------- -----  -------      ----  ----  ------    ----      468  deflate     228  51%         0  11-07-12 23:25  29fb0660  res/color/abs__primary_text_disable_only_holo_dark.xml      468  deflate     228  51%       332  11-07-12 23:25  bae4791a  res/color/abs__primary_text_disable_only_holo_light.xml     2942  stored     2942   0%    280417  10-27-12 16:52  9b5af43b  res/drawable-xhdpi/ic_mus.png     2330  stored     2330   0%    283418  10-27-12 16:52  21f5ba4d  res/drawable-xhdpi/ic_pic.png     1556  stored     1556   0%    285810  10-27-12 16:52  31c3402b  res/drawable-xhdpi/ic_vid.png 

you see method (deflate,stored etc) , offset in binary data resource stored, , length, denotes how many bytes read after offset resource.

what resources.notfoundexception prints:

here's code generates it:

public void getvalue(int id, typedvalue outvalue, boolean resolverefs)         throws notfoundexception {     boolean found = massets.getresourcevalue(id, 0, outvalue, resolverefs);     if (found) {         return;     }     throw new notfoundexception("resource id #0x"                                 + integer.tohexstring(id)); } 

thus, prints hex value of id resources instance requested load.

here's part of r.java:

public static int absforceoverflow=0x7f010039; 

you can see id assigned similar hex values.

can solve error?

the error should not have occurred @ first place if build tools compiled project successfully. there's not can except cleaning or rebuilding project. represents bug in build tools or resource loader.