Select all text inside EditText when it gets focus

I have an EditText with some dummy text in it. When the user clicks on it I want it to be selected so that when the user starts typing the dummy text gets deleted.

How can I achieve this?

You can try in your main.xml file:

android:selectAllOnFocus="true"

Or, in Java, use

editText.setSelectAllOnFocus(true);

editText.setSelectAllOnFocus(true);

This works if you want to do it programatically.

EditText dummy = ... 

// android.view.View.OnFocusChangeListener
dummy.setOnFocusChangeListener(new OnFocusChangeListener(){
    public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus){
        if (hasFocus) && (isDummyText())
            ((EditText)v).selectAll();
    }
});

I know you've found a solution, but really the proper way to do what you're asking is to just use the android:hint attribute in your EditText. This text shows up when the box is empty and not focused, but disappears upon selecting the EditText box.