Size, Padding and Margins

The size of a view is expressed with a width and a height. A view actually possess two pairs of width and height values.

The first pair is known as measured width and measured height. These dimensions define how big a view wants to be within its parent. The measured dimensions can be obtained by calling getMeasuredWidth() and getMeasuredHeight().

The second pair is simply known as width and height, or sometimes drawing width and drawing height. These dimensions define the actual size of the view on screen, at drawing time and after layout. These values may, but do not have to, be different from the measured width and height. The width and height can be obtained by calling getWidth() and getHeight().

To measure its dimensions, a view takes into account its padding. The padding is expressed in pixels for the left, top, right and bottom parts of the view. Padding can be used to offset the content of the view by a specific number of pixels. For instance, a left padding of 2 will push the view's content by 2 pixels to the right of the left edge. Padding can be set using the setPadding(int, int, int, int) method and queried by callinggetPaddingLeft(), getPaddingTop(), getPaddingRight() and getPaddingBottom().

Even though a view can define a padding, it does not provide any support for margins. However, view groups provide such a support. Refer toViewGroup and ViewGroup.MarginLayoutParams for further information.

For more information about dimensions, see Dimension Values.

From: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/declaring-layout.html#SizePaddingMargins