How to get text from AutoCompleteTextView?

Question

I have an AutoCompleteTextView in my app which works. I have successfully created an onClickItemListener. The question is how to grab the text the user selected.

And this is the thing: I have an ArrayList with words being passed to the Adapter to search for suggestions. As the user types a word the suggestions list gets shorter (in rows on the UI side) so when i want to get the word from the ArrayList at the index the user selected i get the wrong word because the indexes doesn't match.

How can I get the text (String) the user chose without having to mess with the index?

Here's my code:

public class AutocompleteActivity extends BaseActivity {

    private DBManager m_db;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.autocomplete);

        m_db = new DBManager(this);
        final ArrayList<String> words = m_db.selectAllWords();
        ArrayAdapter<String> adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.listitem, words);

        AutoCompleteTextView tv = (AutoCompleteTextView)findViewById(R.id.autocomplete);
        tv.setThreshold(1);
        tv.setAdapter(adapter);

        tv.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {

            public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1, int arg2, long arg3) {
                Log.i("SELECTED TEXT WAS------->", words.get(arg2));
            }
        });
    }
}

Thanks for adding this code snippet, it helped for that which took me almost 6 hrs to do. +1 for that — Android, Mar 09 '12 at 11:07
Code worked. A small tip for beginners like me, After pasting this code, click on the field and type a letter to see the suggestion box coming down. I did pasted the code, clicked on the filed and waited for the suggestion box to POPUP which will never open up. But there is showDialogBox() method to display the POPUP. — Pravinraj Venkatachalam, Mar 03 '17 at 05:47

Oscar Salguero · Answer 1 · 2014-08-13T14:01:25.723

Yeah... unfortunately the name of the parameters on the onItemClick method you must implement are not so self-descriptive but here is an example with the names of what they are:

autoCompleteTextView.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
    public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long rowId) {
        String selection = (String)parent.getItemAtPosition(position);
        //TODO Do something with the selected text
    }
});

parent The AdapterView where the click happened.
view The view within the AdapterView that was clicked (this will be a view provided by the adapter)
position The position of the view in the adapter
id The row id of the item that was clicked.

For more info see: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/AdapterView.OnItemClickListener.html

Your suggestion is working fine instead of the selected answers. — Naresh Sharma, May 10 '13 at 07:03

score 46 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 27 '11 at 18:23

46

arg0 being your AdapterView and arg2 the position.

Have you tried:

arg0.getItemAtPosition(arg2);

answered Jan 27 '11 at 18:23

djg

1,283
9
6

i looking for text which is selected by user not a id – Pravin Bhosale May 21 '15 at 14:07
arg3 is id from database. we can use it directly – Vijay Jul 07 '15 at 07:01

score 9 · Answer 3 · edited May 04 '12 at 10:23

I think what you are looking for is this.

String s = this.mCountry.getEditableText().toString();

Where mCountry is the AutoCompleteTextView.

this.mCountry = (AutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.autocomplete_country);
    ArrayAdapter<String> adapterCountry = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.list_item, countries);
    this.mCountry.setAdapter(adapterCountry);

mCountry is the list of countries, and I wanted to save the country selected in SharedPreferences.

Hope this helps.

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 18 '16 at 13:29

Easiest of all

For Getting text of the selected suggestion in AutoCompleteTextView use this

      autoCompleteTextView.setOnItemClickListener(new AdapterView.OnItemClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long id) {
            Log.e("========>>", autoCompleteTextView.getText().toString());
        }
    });

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered May 12 '15 at 08:24

try this:

txtPurpose.setOnItemClickListener(new AdapterView.OnItemClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1, int arg2,
                                long arg3) {
            Purpose selected = (Purpose) arg0.getAdapter().getItem(arg2);
            txtPurpose.setTag(selected);
        }
    });

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited May 14 '15 at 05:45

2

One another of getting text of suggestion selected in AutoCompleteTextView is

@Override
public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view,int position, long id) 
{
    TextView txtvw=(TextView) view;
    String str=txtvw.getText().toString();
    int index = contactNames.indexOf(str);
}

edited May 14 '15 at 05:45

BBdev

4,898
2
31
45

answered May 14 '15 at 05:23

Jasmine John

873
8
12

Shivang · Answer 7 · 2016-05-20T10:04:55.027

2

Here is the code that will solve the problem.

 private AdapterView.OnItemClickListener onItemClickListener = new AdapterView.OnItemClickListener() {
    @Override
    public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int pos, long id) {
        int index = (int) view.getTag();
        Object item = parent.getItemAtPosition(index);
        if (item instanceof SearchItemShareConnectionDAO) {
            SearchItemShareConnectionDAO dao = (SearchItemShareConnectionDAO) item;

        }
    }
};

SetTag(Dao.getPosition) in getView() method of adapter.

edited May 20 '16 at 10:04

answered May 20 '16 at 09:48

Shivang

935
8
18

you r right. this will give us particular data. from Tag of view :) – Ashu Kumar Sep 26 '17 at 07:26

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 29 '16 at 19:12

To get the text of the displayed item selected by the user

public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1, int arg2, long arg3) {
    String selectedItemText = arg0.getItemAtPosition(arg2);
    Log.i("myTag", "SELECTED TEXT WAS["+selectedItemText+"]);
}

Following best practices, please use some form of descriptive nomenclature for your variables, your code will make more sense:

public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> adapterViewIn, View viewIn, int selectedItemIndexIn, long id)

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 31 '18 at 11:36

2

There is also a way to get item outside the onItemClick:

int index = tv.getListSelection();
if (index != ListView.INVALID_POSITION) {
    Object item = tv.getAdapter().getItem(index);
}

beware that int getListSelection() may return ListView.INVALID_POSITION if there is no dropdown or if there is no selection.

answered Oct 31 '18 at 11:36

YTerle

2,606
6
24
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Strange, but `index == -1` (API 29 emulator ). – CoolMind Jun 02 '20 at 08:42
@CoolMind this is possible and is expected behavior `ListView.INVALID_POSITION = -1` – YTerle Jun 02 '20 at 12:57

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 02 '22 at 13:45

0

For me, but on setOnItemSelectedListener():

arg0.getSelectedItem();

was enough. The same should work on setOnItemClickListener() I guess.

answered Jul 02 '22 at 13:45

Sely Lychee

312
1
9

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 25 '22 at 14:42

Kotlin version

autoCompleteId.setOnItemClickListener { parent, view, position, id ->
            val selectedItem = parent.getItemAtPosition(position).toString()
            Log.d("SELECTED ITEM", selectedItem )
        }

Output:

D/CLASSROOM: selectedItem

How to get text from AutoCompleteTextView?

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