What's the best way to limit text length of EditText in Android

Question

What\'s the best way to limit the text length of an EditText in Android?

Is there a way to do this via xml?

Answer 1

A note to people who are already using a custom input filter and also want to limit the max length:

When you assign input filters in code all previously set input filters are cleared, including one set with android:maxLength. I found this out when attempting to use a custom input filter to prevent the use of some characters that we don't allow in a password field. After setting that filter with setFilters the maxLength was no longer observed. The solution was to set maxLength and my custom filter together programmatically. Something like this:

myEditText.setFilters(new InputFilter[] {
        new PasswordCharFilter(), new InputFilter.LengthFilter(20)
});

Answer 2

For anyone else wondering how to achieve this, here is my extended EditText class EditTextNumeric.

.setMaxLength(int) - sets maximum number of digits

.setMaxValue(int) - limit maximum integer value

.setMin(int) - limit minimum integer value

.getValue() - get integer value

import android.content.Context;
import android.text.InputFilter;
import android.text.InputType;
import android.widget.EditText;

public class EditTextNumeric extends EditText {
    protected int max_value = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
    protected int min_value = Integer.MIN_VALUE;

    // constructor
    public EditTextNumeric(Context context) {
        super(context);
        this.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_NUMBER);
    }

    // checks whether the limits are set and corrects them if not within limits
    @Override
    protected void onTextChanged(CharSequence text, int start, int before, int after) {
        if (max_value != Integer.MAX_VALUE) {
            try {
                if (Integer.parseInt(this.getText().toString()) > max_value) {
                    // change value and keep cursor position
                    int selection = this.getSelectionStart();
                    this.setText(String.valueOf(max_value));
                    if (selection >= this.getText().toString().length()) {
                        selection = this.getText().toString().length();
                    }
                    this.setSelection(selection);
                }
            } catch (NumberFormatException exception) {
                super.onTextChanged(text, start, before, after);
            }
        }
        if (min_value != Integer.MIN_VALUE) {
            try {
                if (Integer.parseInt(this.getText().toString()) < min_value) {
                    // change value and keep cursor position
                    int selection = this.getSelectionStart();
                    this.setText(String.valueOf(min_value));
                    if (selection >= this.getText().toString().length()) {
                        selection = this.getText().toString().length();
                    }
                    this.setSelection(selection);
                }
            } catch (NumberFormatException exception) {
                super.onTextChanged(text, start, before, after);
            }
        }
        super.onTextChanged(text, start, before, after);
    }

    // set the max number of digits the user can enter
    public void setMaxLength(int length) {
        InputFilter[] FilterArray = new InputFilter[1];
        FilterArray[0] = new InputFilter.LengthFilter(length);
        this.setFilters(FilterArray);
    }

    // set the maximum integer value the user can enter.
    // if exeeded, input value will become equal to the set limit
    public void setMaxValue(int value) {
        max_value = value;
    }
    // set the minimum integer value the user can enter.
    // if entered value is inferior, input value will become equal to the set limit
    public void setMinValue(int value) {
        min_value = value;
    }

    // returns integer value or 0 if errorous value
    public int getValue() {
        try {
            return Integer.parseInt(this.getText().toString());
        } catch (NumberFormatException exception) {
            return 0;
        }
    }
}

Example usage:

final EditTextNumeric input = new EditTextNumeric(this);
input.setMaxLength(5);
input.setMaxValue(total_pages);
input.setMinValue(1);

All other methods and attributes that apply to EditText, of course work too.

Answer 3

EditText editText = new EditText(this);
int maxLength = 3;    
editText.setFilters(new InputFilter[] {new InputFilter.LengthFilter(maxLength)});

Answer 4

Try this for Java programmatically:

myEditText(new InputFilter[] {new InputFilter.LengthFilter(CUSTOM_MAX_LEN)});