[android] How do you set the max number of characters for an EditText in Android?

How do you set the max number of characters for an Android EditText input? I see setMaxLines, setMaxEMS, but nothing for the number of characters.

This question is related to android android-edittext

The answer is


use this function anywhere easily:

 public static void setEditTextMaxLength(EditText editText, int length) {
    InputFilter[] FilterArray = new InputFilter[1];
    FilterArray[0] = new InputFilter.LengthFilter(length);
    editText.setFilters(FilterArray);
  }

It is working for me.

    etMsgDescription.setFilters(new InputFilter[] {new InputFilter.LengthFilter(maximum_character)});

    etMsgDescription.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {

        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {

            tvCharacterLimite.setText(" "+String.valueOf(maximum_character - etMsgDescription.getText().length()));
        }

        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count,
                int after) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        }

        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        }
    });

Obviously you can use maxLength in xml or InputFilter.LengthFilter as answered above. But for me in some cases, it was not enough. I created a class for more flexible settings of EditText: https://github.com/devapro/NumberWatcher It is implementation only for numbers input, but you can change it for any of the types.


   <EditText
        android:id="@+id/edtName"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:hint="Enter device name"
        android:maxLength="10"
        android:inputType="textFilter"
        android:singleLine="true"/>

InputType has to set "textFilter"

        android:inputType="textFilter"

it doesn't work from XML with maxLenght I used this code, you can limit the number of characters

String editorName = mEditorNameNd.getText().toString().substring(0, Math.min(mEditorNameNd.length(), 15));


You can use a InputFilter, that's the way:

EditText myEditText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText1);
InputFilter[] filters = new InputFilter[1];
filters[0] = new InputFilter.LengthFilter(10); //Filter to 10 characters
myEditText .setFilters(filters);

I always set the max like this:

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/edit_blaze_it
        android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_height="@dimen/too_high"

    <!-- This is the line you need to write to set the max-->
        android:maxLength="420"
        />

Dynamically:

editText.setFilters(new InputFilter[] { new InputFilter.LengthFilter(MAX_NUM) });

Via xml:

<EditText
    android:maxLength="@integer/max_edittext_length"

It worked for me this way, it's the best I've found. It is for a max length of 200 characters

editObservations.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {

    @Override
    public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
        if (editObservations.getText().length() >= 201){
                String str = editObservations.getText().toString().substring(0, 200);
                editObservations.setText(str);
                editObservations.setSelection(str.length());
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count,
                                          int after) {
    }

    @Override
    public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
    }
});

In XML you can add this line to the EditText View where 140 is the maximum number of characters:

android:maxLength="140"

Kotlin way

editText.filters = arrayOf(InputFilter.LengthFilter(maxLength))