Why value defined in `values.xml` gets overriden?

Question

I have clean Android project initialized from AndroidStudio. I am trying to change style of actionMenuItem so it is not in uppercase.

I found out that there is an abc_config_actionMenuItemAllCaps boolean set in \appcompat-1.4.1\res\values\values.xml.

I tried to override it by this values.xml file:

<resources>
    <bool name="abc_config_actionMenuItemAllCaps">false</bool>
</resources>

but it does not work.

I am not trying to find a solution for having actionMenuItem lowercase. I am trying to get reasoning behind why overriding the boolean is not working.

Answer 1

It's because library gets the value from its values file not from your app's values.xml. For instance:
You get some boolean value using:

getResources().getBoolean(com.yourapps.package.R.bool.some_id);

but library uses:

getResources().getBoolean(com.library.package.R.bool.some_id);

As you can see paths are different, so it is simply impossible to override in this way.