EditText maxLines not working - user can still inp

Question

<EditText 
    android:id="@+id/editText2" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:maxLines="5" 
    android:lines="5">
</EditText>

User can input more than 5 lines, by pressing enter/next row key. How can I limit user input to fixed amount of rows with EditText?

Answer 1

The attribute maxLines corresponds to the maximum height of the EditText, it controls the outer boundaries and not inner text lines.

Answer 2

Here is a InputFilter that limits allowed lines in EditText:

/**
 * Filter for controlling maximum new lines in EditText.
 */
public class MaxLinesInputFilter implements InputFilter {

  private final int mMax;

  public MaxLinesInputFilter(int max) {
    mMax = max;
  }

  public CharSequence filter(CharSequence source, int start, int end, Spanned dest, int dstart, int dend) {
    int newLinesToBeAdded = countOccurrences(source.toString(), '\n');
    int newLinesBefore = countOccurrences(dest.toString(), '\n');
    if (newLinesBefore >= mMax - 1 && newLinesToBeAdded > 0) {
      // filter
      return "";
    }

    // do nothing
    return null;
  }

  /**
   * @return the maximum lines enforced by this input filter
   */
  public int getMax() {
    return mMax;
  }

  /**
   * Counts the number occurrences of the given char.
   *
   * @param string the string
   * @param charAppearance the char
   * @return number of occurrences of the char
   */
  public static int countOccurrences(String string, char charAppearance) {
    int count = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < string.length(); i++) {
      if (string.charAt(i) == charAppearance) {
        count++;
      }
    }
    return count;
  }
}

To add it to EditText:

editText.setFilters(new InputFilter[]{new MaxLinesInputFilter(2)});

Answer 3

This is what i used in my project:

editText.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
    private String text;

public void onTextChanged(CharSequence arg0, int arg1, int arg2, int arg3) {    
}

public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence arg0, int arg1, int arg2, int arg3) {
    text = arg0.toString();
    }

public void afterTextChanged(Editable arg0) {
    int lineCount = editText.getLineCount();
    if(lineCount > numberOfLines){
    editText.setText(text);
    }
}
});

editText.setOnKeyListener(new View.OnKeyListener() {

public boolean onKey(View v, int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {

// if enter is pressed start calculating
    if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_ENTER && event.getAction() == KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN){    
    int editTextLineCount = ((EditText)v).getLineCount();
    if (editTextLineCount >= numberOfLines)
        return true;
}

return false;
}
});

And it worked in all scenarios

Answer 4

For limit number of characters we can simply use maxLength property of EditText as it will not allow user to enter more characters.