How can I enter only alphabets in EditText in android?
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Kotlin Solution here - https://stackoverflow.com/a/52947835/3333878 – abitcode Oct 23 '18 at 11:32
14 Answers
Add this line with your EditText tag.
android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
Your EditText tag should look like:
<EditText
android:id="@+id/editText1"
android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
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12
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8
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1extra add this line for suggestion android:inputType="text|textNoSuggestions" – msevgi Oct 21 '15 at 11:30
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after char insertion if we try to add number it repeat previous char – Rahul Chaudhary Mar 25 '16 at 08:19
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5use this to allow spaces too: `android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ "` – vishalknishad Aug 23 '17 at 10:15
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HI @Sandeep when i entered numeric value then it's not show but count so problem arise when i have set maxLength.. – Dileep Patel Jan 31 '18 at 06:33
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@vishalknishad If you put space at the end of a string it will be automatically trimmed off, but rather put the space in between your strings like this `abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ` – Alaa AbuZarifa Dec 30 '20 at 12:15
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Did anyone get abnormal behavior of blinking cursor? Blinking cursor is stuck at the start of the textbox. – Muhammad Saqib Aug 22 '21 at 11:54
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edittext.setFilters(new InputFilter[] {
new InputFilter() {
public CharSequence filter(CharSequence src, int start,
int end, Spanned dst, int dstart, int dend) {
if(src.equals("")){ // for backspace
return src;
}
if(src.toString().matches("[a-zA-Z ]+")){
return src;
}
return edittext.getText().toString();
}
}
});
please test thoroughly though !

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11It didn't work for me. i did the same but when i enter numbers or special characters into EditText, it will remove all the characters which enter earlier. Why it is happen so? – Nayana_Das Nov 07 '15 at 05:59
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@Nayana_Das That might be because of this line `return "";` . Replace that line with some text without the invalid character instead of returning an empty string. – Rahul Chowdhury Nov 14 '16 at 09:22
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1Didn't work for me. When I type a number, if duplicates the text which is in the EditText. So if I had written "aba", it will put "abaaba" in the EditText. – FabioR Aug 05 '20 at 15:09
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when I press ( ) or number then it duplicates the data and this is a serious problem with that answer. Go for @swetabhSuman's answer. – Vijay Oct 08 '20 at 13:42
For those who want that their editText should accept only alphabets and space (neither numerics nor any special characters), then one can use this InputFilter
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Here I have created a method named getEditTextFilter()
and written the InputFilter inside it.
public static InputFilter getEditTextFilter() {
return new InputFilter() {
@Override
public CharSequence filter(CharSequence source, int start, int end, Spanned dest, int dstart, int dend) {
boolean keepOriginal = true;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(end - start);
for (int i = start; i < end; i++) {
char c = source.charAt(i);
if (isCharAllowed(c)) // put your condition here
sb.append(c);
else
keepOriginal = false;
}
if (keepOriginal)
return null;
else {
if (source instanceof Spanned) {
SpannableString sp = new SpannableString(sb);
TextUtils.copySpansFrom((Spanned) source, start, sb.length(), null, sp, 0);
return sp;
} else {
return sb;
}
}
}
private boolean isCharAllowed(char c) {
Pattern ps = Pattern.compile("^[a-zA-Z ]+$");
Matcher ms = ps.matcher(String.valueOf(c));
return ms.matches();
}
};
}
Attach this inputFilter to your editText after finding it, like this :
mEditText.setFilters(new InputFilter[]{getEditTextFilter()});
The original credit goes to @UMAR who gave the idea of validating using regular expression and @KamilSeweryn

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10The Best answer. Have no idea why no more upvotes. android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" is the baddest solution cause android:imeOption not working with it. – Rahim Rahimov May 04 '17 at 13:08
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As @mdzeko suggested: "^[a-zA-Z ]+$" -> "^[\\p{L} ]+$" It works for me for Unicode. – Dark Sep 02 '19 at 11:41
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1Thank you man! You save my day! But it's not working on some devices (includes my - xiaomi redmi note 2), need remove suggestions for `EditText`. And the only way which work it's set `android:inputType="textVisiblePassword"`. Also I change `isCharAllowed(c)` function and make it without **Regex**. My way: `allowSymbols.contains(c, ignoreCase = true)`, where `allowSymbols` - a `string` with allowed characters. – SerjantArbuz Feb 12 '22 at 17:48
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1This works and also helped me in discovering my own regex to use to get my solution, Thanks – Neo Mar 05 '23 at 16:17
EditText state = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.txtState);
Pattern ps = Pattern.compile("^[a-zA-Z ]+$");
Matcher ms = ps.matcher(state.getText().toString());
boolean bs = ms.matches();
if (bs == false) {
if (ErrorMessage.contains("invalid"))
ErrorMessage = ErrorMessage + "state,";
else
ErrorMessage = ErrorMessage + "invalid state,";
}

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Through Xml you can do easily as type following code in xml (editText)...
android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
only characters will be accepted...

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Put code edittext xml file,
android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"

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For spaces, you can add single space in the digits. If you need any special characters like the dot, a comma also you can add to this list
android:digits="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ "

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Allow only Alphabets in EditText android:
InputFilter letterFilter = new InputFilter() {
public CharSequence filter(CharSequence source, int start, int end, Spanned dest, int dstart, int dend) {
String filtered = "";
for (int i = start; i < end; i++) {
char character = source.charAt(i);
if (!Character.isWhitespace(character)&&Character.isLetter(character)) {
filtered += character;
}
}
return filtered;
}
};
editText.setFilters(new InputFilter[]{letterFilter});

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This worked as per my requirements after a couple more customizations. +1 – Shahood ul Hassan Dec 06 '19 at 03:43
Try This
<EditText
android:id="@+id/EditText1"
android:text=""
android:inputType="text|textNoSuggestions"
android:textSize="18sp"
android:layout_width="80dp"
android:layout_height="43dp">
</EditText>
Other inputType can be found Here ..

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If anybody still wants this, Java regex for support Unicode? is a good one. It's for when you want ONLY letters (no matter what encoding - japaneese, sweedish) iside an EditText. Later, you can check it using Matcher
and Pattern.compile()
- Just use the attribute
android:inputType="text"
in your xml file
EX: if you want the user to provide an email address text:
<EditText
android:id="@+id/user_address"
android:inputType="textEmailAddress"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
feel free to check many other input attributes using android studio's autocomplete feature:

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Simple answer
EditText editTextName = findViewById(R.id.editTextName);
String name = editTextName.getText().toString().trim();
if(!name.matches("[a-zA-Z ]+")) {
editTextName.setError("Please enter only letters");
}

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EditText editText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.et_name);
editText.setFilters(new InputFilter[]{
new InputFilter() {
public CharSequence filter(CharSequence src, int start,
int end, Spanned dst, int dstart, int dend) {
if (src.equals("")) {
return src;
}
if (src.toString().matches("[a-zA-Z ]+")) {
return src;
}
String str = src.toString();
str = str.replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z ]", "");
return str;
}
}
});

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Try This Method
For Java :
EditText yourEditText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.yourEditText);
yourEditText.setFilters(new InputFilter[] {
new InputFilter() {
@Override
public CharSequence filter(CharSequence cs, int start,
int end, Spanned spanned, int dStart, int dEnd) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
if(cs.equals("")){ // for backspace
return cs;
}
if(cs.toString().matches("[a-zA-Z ]+")){
return cs;
}
return "";
}
}});
For Kotlin :
val yourEditText = findViewById<View>(android.R.id.yourEditText) as EditText
val reges = Regex("^[0-9a-zA-Z ]+$")
//this will allow user to only write letter and white space
yourEditText.filters = arrayOf<InputFilter>(
object : InputFilter {
override fun filter(
cs: CharSequence, start: Int,
end: Int, spanned: Spanned?, dStart: Int, dEnd: Int,
): CharSequence? {
if (cs == "") { // for backspace
return cs
}
return if (cs.toString().matches(reges)) {
cs
} else ""
}
}
)

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