How to create EditText accepts Alphabets only in android?

How can I enter only alphabets in EditText in android?


Add this line with your EditText tag.

android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"

Your EditText tag should look like:

<EditText
        android:id="@+id/editText1"
        android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

edittext.setFilters(new InputFilter[] {
    new InputFilter() {
        public CharSequence filter(CharSequence src, int start,
                int end, Spanned dst, int dstart, int dend) {
            if(src.equals("")){ // for backspace
                return src;
            }
            if(src.toString().matches("[a-zA-Z ]+")){
                return src;
            }
            return edittext.getText().toString();
        }
    }
});

please test thoroughly though !


For those who want that their editText should accept only alphabets and space (neither numerics nor any special characters), then one can use this InputFilter. Here I have created a method named getEditTextFilter() and written the InputFilter inside it.

public static InputFilter getEditTextFilter() {
        return new InputFilter() {

            @Override
            public CharSequence filter(CharSequence source, int start, int end, Spanned dest, int dstart, int dend) {

                boolean keepOriginal = true;
                StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(end - start);
                for (int i = start; i < end; i++) {
                    char c = source.charAt(i);
                    if (isCharAllowed(c)) // put your condition here
                        sb.append(c);
                    else
                        keepOriginal = false;
                }
                if (keepOriginal)
                    return null;
                else {
                    if (source instanceof Spanned) {
                        SpannableString sp = new SpannableString(sb);
                        TextUtils.copySpansFrom((Spanned) source, start, sb.length(), null, sp, 0);
                        return sp;
                    } else {
                        return sb;
                    }
                }
            }

            private boolean isCharAllowed(char c) {
                Pattern ps = Pattern.compile("^[a-zA-Z ]+$");
                Matcher ms = ps.matcher(String.valueOf(c));
                return ms.matches();
            }
        };
    }

Attach this inputFilter to your editText after finding it, like this :

mEditText.setFilters(new InputFilter[]{getEditTextFilter()});

The original credit goes to @UMAR who gave the idea of validating using regular expression and @KamilSeweryn


EditText state = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.txtState);


                Pattern ps = Pattern.compile("^[a-zA-Z ]+$");
                Matcher ms = ps.matcher(state.getText().toString());
                boolean bs = ms.matches();
                if (bs == false) {
                    if (ErrorMessage.contains("invalid"))
                        ErrorMessage = ErrorMessage + "state,";
                    else
                        ErrorMessage = ErrorMessage + "invalid state,";

                }

Through Xml you can do easily as type following code in xml (editText)...

android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

only characters will be accepted...