Enable a button in Swift only if all text fields have been filled out

Question

I am having trouble figuring out how to change my code to make it so the Done button in the navigation bar is enabled when my three text fields are filled out.

I cur

Answer 1

Xcode 10.2 • Swift 4.3 version of Leo Dabus above.

This solution is for adding a user, probably the most common implementation for such validation.

override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
addUserButton.backgroundColor = disabledButtonColor
addUserButton.isEnabled = false

[emailField, userNameField, firstNameField, lastNameField].forEach { (field) in
    field?.addTarget(self,
                     action: #selector(editingChanged(_:)),
                     for: .editingChanged)
}}



@objc private func editingChanged(_ textField: UITextField) {
if textField.text?.count == 1 {
    if textField.text?.first == " " {
        textField.text = ""
        return
    }
}
guard
    let email       = emailField.text,      !email.isEmpty,
    let userName    = userNameField.text,   !userName.isEmpty,
    let firstName   = firstNameField.text,  !firstName.isEmpty,
    let lastName    = lastNameField.text,   !lastName.isEmpty
    else {
        addUserButton.isEnabled = false
        addUserButton.backgroundColor = disabledButtonColor
        return
}
addUserButton.isEnabled = true
addUserButton.backgroundColor = activeButtonColor

}

Answer 2

I went ahead and abstracted this out a bit into a helper class that one can use for their swift project.

import Foundation
import UIKit

class ButtonValidationHelper {

  var textFields: [UITextField]!
  var buttons: [UIButton]!

  init(textFields: [UITextField], buttons: [UIButton]) {

    self.textFields = textFields
    self.buttons = buttons

    attachTargetsToTextFields()
    disableButtons()
    checkForEmptyFields()
  }

  //Attach editing changed listeners to all textfields passed in
  private func attachTargetsToTextFields() {
    for textfield in textFields{
        textfield.addTarget(self, action: #selector(textFieldsIsNotEmpty), for: .editingChanged)
    }
  }

  @objc private func textFieldsIsNotEmpty(sender: UITextField) {
    sender.text = sender.text?.trimmingCharacters(in: .whitespaces)
    checkForEmptyFields()
  }


  //Returns true if the field is empty, false if it not
  private func checkForEmptyFields() {

    for textField in textFields{
        guard let textFieldVar = textField.text, !textFieldVar.isEmpty else {
            disableButtons()
            return
        }
    }
    enableButtons()
  }

  private func enableButtons() {
    for button in buttons{
        button.isEnabled = true
    }
  }

  private func disableButtons() {
    for button in buttons{
        button.isEnabled = false
    }
  }

}

And then in your View Controller just simply init the helper with

buttonHelper = ButtonValidationHelper(textFields: [textfield1, textfield2, textfield3, textfield4], buttons: [button])

Make sure you keep a strong reference at top to prevent deallocation

var buttonHelper: ButtonValidationHelper!

Answer 3

Xcode 9 • Swift 4

You can addTarget to your text fields to monitor for the control event .editingChanged and use a single selector method for all of them:

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    doneBarButton.isEnabled = false
    [habitNameField, goalField, frequencyField].forEach({ $0.addTarget(self, action: #selector(editingChanged), for: .editingChanged) })
}

Create the selector method and use guard combined with where clause (Swift 3/4 uses a comma) to make sure all text fields are not empty otherwise just return. Swift 3 does not require @objc, but Swift 4 does:

@objc func editingChanged(_ textField: UITextField) {
    if textField.text?.characters.count == 1 {
        if textField.text?.characters.first == " " {
            textField.text = ""
            return
        }
    }
    guard
        let habit = habitNameField.text, !habit.isEmpty,
        let goal = goalField.text, !goal.isEmpty,
        let frequency = frequencyField.text, !frequency.isEmpty
    else {
        doneBarButton.isEnabled = false
        return
    }
    doneBarButton.isEnabled = true
}

sample

Answer 4

With Combine (Xcode11+, iOS13+) this became easier.

First you need to be able to create a publisher for text changes:

extension UITextField {

    var textPublisher: AnyPublisher<String, Never> {
        NotificationCenter.default
            .publisher(for: UITextField.textDidChangeNotification, object: self)
            .compactMap { $0.object as? UITextField }
            .map { $0.text ?? "" }
            .eraseToAnyPublisher()
    }

}

Then you can combine multiple publishers from multiple text fields:

private var readyToLogIn: AnyPublisher<Bool, Never> {
   return Publishers
      .CombineLatest(
         emailTextField.textPublisher, passwordTextField.textPublisher
      )
      .map { email, password in
         !email.isEmpty && !password.isEmpty
      }
      .eraseToAnyPublisher()
}

And then change your button isEnabled property based on that combined Publisher

readyToLogIn
   .receive(on: RunLoop.main)
   .assign(to: \.isEnabled, on: signInButton)

Answer 5

You can create an array of text fields [UITextField] or an outlet collection. Let's call the array textFields or something like that.

doneBarButton.isEnabled = !textFields.flatMap { $0.text?.isEmpty }.contains(true)

And call the code above in a method that monitors text field's text changes.

Answer 6

func textField(textField: UITextField, shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange, replacementString string: String) -> Bool {
    if (textField == self.textField1) { /* do Something */ }
    else if (textField == self.textField2) { /* do Something */ }
    else if (textField == self.textField3) { /* do Something */ }

    // regardless of what you do before, doneBarButton is enabled when all are not empty
    doneBarButton.enabled = (textField1.length != 0) && (textField2.length != 0) && (textField3.length != 0)
    return true

}