Calling setDefaultValue() on a custom Preference class does not set the default value. Why?

I'm extending PreferenceActivity for my settings screen. In this preference activity i have a couple of preferences one of which is custom made. The problem is as follows:

in this custom preference (which extends from ListPreference) i want to be able to set the default value, so i override the setDefaultValue() method. In this method i do some parsing so it'll take the correct value. When i'm trying to read this value with the getValue() function it just returns null.

So i figured, what happens when i just put some hardcoded value in there (you know, maybe i did something wrong, wouldn't be the first time). Well, i still get null back.

Any ideas what i'm doing wrong?

Edit:
Setting the defaultValue in the xml file isn't really an option because the values aren't known until i retrieve them.

I made a workaround:

• When app is started for the first time: get data
• Set the values in the preference.

This way i set the default preference when i'm collection the data

setDefaultValue doesn't work the way you think it does. Look at the source of Preference.java and you'll the logic behind it all.

The preferred way to set a default is to specify the android:defaultValue attribute in the preferences.xml file of your app.