How to use a AutoCompleteTextView

AutoCompleteTextView an editable text view that shows completion suggestions automatically while the user is typing. The list of suggestions is displayed in a drop down menu from which the user can choose an item to replace the content of the edit box with (from Android documentation).


Here is an example:

public class MyTestClass extends Activity

{

    AutoCompleteTextView myACTextView;

   

    /** Called when the activity is first created. */

    @Override

    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)

    {

        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        final String[] s= 

           getResources().

           getStringArray(R.array.myArrayStringData);

        myACTextView= (AutoCompleteTextView) 
                  findViewById(R.id.autoCompleteTextView);

        ArrayAdapter<String> myAdapter = 
                  new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,
                  android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line, s);

        myACTextView.setAdapter(myAdapter);

      ....your other code here ............

   }

}

================================================================
Provide the content of myArrayStringData in your res/values/strings.xml file as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>

   

    <string-array name="myArrayStringData">

       <item>ABC</item>

       <item>DEF</item>

       <item>GHI</item>

       <item>JKH</item>

     </string-array>

   

     <string name="myOtherString">Hello There!</string>

     

</resources>

Note: Alternatively, this array can be defined right in the Java code as: final String[] s= new String[] { "ABC", "DEF", "GHI", "JKL" };
==================================================================
Inside your main.xml, AutoCompleteTextView will look something like this. Note that,  per documentation, android:completionThreshold defines the number of characters that the user must type before completion suggestions are displayed in a drop down menu.

AutoCompleteTextView

        android:layout_width="fill_parent"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:id="@+id/autoCompleteTextView"

        android:completionThreshold="1"

        >

</AutoCompleteTextView>