How to capitalize every letter in an Android EditT

Question

I have an array of editTexts which I make like this:

        inputs[i] = new EditText(this);
        inputs[i].setWidth(376);
        inputs[i].setInputType(InputType.TYPE_TEXT_FLAG_CAP_CHARACTERS);
        tFields.addView(inputs[i]);

I want every character to be capitalized. Right now, the first letter of the first word is lowercase, then all the characters afterwords are upper case. I can take what the user inputs after they are done and convert that to uppercase, but that's not really what I'm going for. Is there a way to get these fields to behave the way I want them to?

Answer 1

For some reason adding the xml did not work on my device.

I found that a Text Filter works for to uppercase, like this

    EditText editText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editTextId);

    InputFilter toUpperCaseFilter = new InputFilter() {
        public CharSequence filter(CharSequence source, int start, int end,
                                   Spanned dest, int dstart, int dend) {

            StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();

            for (int i = start; i < end; i++) {
                Character character = source.charAt(i);
                character = Character.toUpperCase(character); // THIS IS UPPER CASING
                stringBuilder.append(character);

            }
            return stringBuilder.toString();
        }

    };

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

Answer 2

You need to tell it it's from the "class" text as well:

inputs[i] = new EditText(this);
inputs[i].setWidth(376);
inputs[i].setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT | InputType.TYPE_TEXT_FLAG_CAP_CHARACTERS);
tFields.addView(inputs[i]);

The input type is a bitmask. You can combine the flags by putting the | (pipe) character in the middle, which stands for the OR logic function, even though when used in a bitmask like this it means "this flag AND that other flag".

(This answer is the same as Robin's but without "magic numbers", one of the worst things you can put in your code. The Android API has constants, use them instead of copying the values and risking to eventually break the code.)

Answer 3

I know this question is a bit old but here is explained how to do it in different ways:

Applying UpperCase in XML

Add the following to the EditText XML:

android:inputType="textCapCharacters"

Applying UpperCase as the only filter to an EditText in Java

Here we are setting the UpperCase filter as the only filter of the EditText. Notice that this method removes all the previously added filters.

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

Adding UpperCase to the existing filters of an EditText in Java

To keep the already applied filters of the EditText, let's say inputType, maxLength, etc, you need to retrieve the applied filters, add the UpperCase filter to those filters, and set them back to the EditText. Here is an example how:

InputFilter[] editFilters = editText.getFilters();
InputFilter[] newFilters = new InputFilter[editFilters.length + 1];
System.arraycopy(editFilters, 0, newFilters, 0, editFilters.length);
newFilters[editFilters.length] = new InputFilter.AllCaps();  
editText.setFilters(newFilters);

Answer 4

Just use String.toUpperCase() method.

example :

String str = "blablabla";
editText.setText(str.toUpperCase()); // it will give : BLABLABLA

EDIT :

add this attribute to you EditText Tag in your layout xml :

 android:textAllCaps="true"

OR:

If you want whatever the user types to be uppercase you could implement a TextWatcher and use the EditText addTextChangedListener to add it, an on the onTextChange method take the user input and replace it with the same text in uppercase.

editText.addTextChangedListener(upperCaseTextWatcher);

final TextWatcher upperCaseTextWatcher = new TextWatcher() {

public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i1, int i2) {
}

public void onTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i1, int i2) {
    editText.setText(editText.getText().toString().toUpperCase());
    editText.setSelection(editText.getText().toString().length());
}

public void afterTextChanged(Editable editable) {
}

};