How do I use InputFilter to limit characters in an EditText in Android?
I want to restrict the chars to 0-9, a-z, A-Z and spacebar only. Setting inputtype I can limit to digits but I cannot figure out the ways of Inputfilter looking through the docs.
I found this on another forum. Works like a champ.
InputFilter filter = new InputFilter() {
public CharSequence filter(CharSequence source, int start, int end,
Spanned dest, int dstart, int dend) {
for (int i = start; i < end; i++) {
if (!Character.isLetterOrDigit(source.charAt(i))) {
return "";
}
}
return null;
}
};
edit.setFilters(new InputFilter[] { filter });
InputFilter
s are a little complicated in Android versions that display dictionary suggestions. You sometimes get a SpannableStringBuilder
, sometimes a plain String
in the source
parameter.
The following InputFilter
should work. Feel free to improve this code!
new InputFilter() {
@Override
public CharSequence filter(CharSequence source, int start, int end,
Spanned dest, int dstart, int dend) {
if (source instanceof SpannableStringBuilder) {
SpannableStringBuilder sourceAsSpannableBuilder = (SpannableStringBuilder)source;
for (int i = end - 1; i >= start; i--) {
char currentChar = source.charAt(i);
if (!Character.isLetterOrDigit(currentChar) && !Character.isSpaceChar(currentChar)) {
sourceAsSpannableBuilder.delete(i, i+1);
}
}
return source;
} else {
StringBuilder filteredStringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = start; i < end; i++) {
char currentChar = source.charAt(i);
if (Character.isLetterOrDigit(currentChar) || Character.isSpaceChar(currentChar)) {
filteredStringBuilder.append(currentChar);
}
}
return filteredStringBuilder.toString();
}
}
}
much easier:
<EditText
android:inputType="text"
android:digits="0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,*,qwertzuiopasdfghjklyxcvbnm" />
None of posted answers did work for me. I came with my own solution:
InputFilter filter = 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) {
return Character.isLetterOrDigit(c) || Character.isSpaceChar(c);
}
}
editText.setFilters(new InputFilter[] { filter });