You can obtain the numeric ID of your raw resource using Resources.getIdentifier()
and then use it in your play function:
Resources res = context.getResources();
int soundId = res.getIdentifier(actualSound, "raw", context.getPackageName());
playSound(mediaPlayer, soundId);
Note that generally, you shouldn't do this. It is more efficient to access resources by numeric identifier (i.e. R
-qualified constant). This would especially matter if you were to do the above every time you want to play sound in a game. It is better to use a mapping of sound names (or better yet: enum values) to resource identifiers or even pre-loaded sound samples.