Question: Is it possible to create an Android shape object with stroke on only certain sides?

Eg I have:

```
<stroke 
 android:width="3dip" 
 android:color="#000000"
    android:dashWidth="10dip" 
    android:dashGap="6dip" />

```

Which is similar to this CSS:

```
border: 3px dashed black;

```

How can I set the stroke on just one side? This is how I would do it in CSS:

```
border-left: 3px dashed black;

```

How do you do this in Android XML?

Answer: 
I achieved a good solution with this one:

```
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<!-- This is the line -->
    <item android:top="-1dp" android:right="-1dp" android:left="-1dp">
      <shape>
            <solid android:color="@android:color/transparent" />
            <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#ffffff" />
      </shape>
    </item>

</layer-list>

```

This works well in case you need a **transparent background** but still an open stroke color (In my case I only needed a bottom line). If you need a background color you can add a solid shape color as in Maragues answer.

**EDIT 1**

Sometimes, for High Density devices, **using low dip values may end in very thin or invisible strokes or distances**. This may happen to you also when setting ListView dividers.

The simplest workaround is to use a distance of 1px instead of 1dp. This will make the line always visible at all densities. **The best solution would be to create dimension resources for each density, to get the best size for each device.**

**Edit 2**

Fun, but I tried to use this 6 years later and I can't get a good result on Lollipop devices.

Probably the current solution is to use 9-patch. Android should have made an easy solution for this problem after all this time.
I know this question was posted long ago, so the answer will not be used by the person who posted this question, but it may still help others.

```
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!-- inset is used to remove border from top, it can remove border from any other side-->
    <inset xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:insetTop="-2dp"
        >
    <shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:id="@+id/rectangle">
        <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#b7b7b7" />
        <corners android:bottomRightRadius="5dp"  android:bottomLeftRadius="5dp"/>

        <solid android:color="#454444"/>
    </shape>
    </inset>

```

Use the `inset` tag and give a negative value for the side border you want to remove. 

The possible values are:

`android:insetTop="-1dp" 
 android:insetBottom="-1dp"
 android:insetLeft="-1dp"
 android:insetRight="-1dp"`