Do not use a KeyListener for this as you'll miss much including pasting of text. Also a KeyListener is a very low-level construct and as such, should be avoided in Swing applications.
The solution has been described many times on SO: Use a DocumentFilter. There are several examples of this on this site, some written by me.
For example: using-documentfilter-filterbypass
Also for tutorial help, please look at: Implementing a DocumentFilter.
Edit
For instance:
import javax.swing.JOptionPane;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import javax.swing.text.AttributeSet;
import javax.swing.text.BadLocationException;
import javax.swing.text.Document;
import javax.swing.text.DocumentFilter;
import javax.swing.text.PlainDocument;
public class DocFilter {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JTextField textField = new JTextField(10);
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.add(textField);
PlainDocument doc = (PlainDocument) textField.getDocument();
doc.setDocumentFilter(new MyIntFilter());
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, panel);
}
}
class MyIntFilter extends DocumentFilter {
@Override
public void insertString(FilterBypass fb, int offset, String string,
AttributeSet attr) throws BadLocationException {
Document doc = fb.getDocument();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append(doc.getText(0, doc.getLength()));
sb.insert(offset, string);
if (test(sb.toString())) {
super.insertString(fb, offset, string, attr);
} else {
// warn the user and don't allow the insert
}
}
private boolean test(String text) {
try {
Integer.parseInt(text);
return true;
} catch (NumberFormatException e) {
return false;
}
}
@Override
public void replace(FilterBypass fb, int offset, int length, String text,
AttributeSet attrs) throws BadLocationException {
Document doc = fb.getDocument();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append(doc.getText(0, doc.getLength()));
sb.replace(offset, offset + length, text);
if (test(sb.toString())) {
super.replace(fb, offset, length, text, attrs);
} else {
// warn the user and don't allow the insert
}
}
@Override
public void remove(FilterBypass fb, int offset, int length)
throws BadLocationException {
Document doc = fb.getDocument();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append(doc.getText(0, doc.getLength()));
sb.delete(offset, offset + length);
if (test(sb.toString())) {
super.remove(fb, offset, length);
} else {
// warn the user and don't allow the insert
}
}
}
Why is this important?
- What if the user uses copy and paste to insert data into the text component? A KeyListener can miss this?
- You appear to be desiring to check that the data can represent an int. What if they enter numeric data that doesn't fit?
- What if you want to allow the user to later enter double data? In scientific notation?