Compare Placeholder Text in text field

Question

I have set the placeholder text(e.g. Under 18s) of a text field(homeTeam) in storyboard. Now i want to check the condition something like below.

- (BOOL)textFieldShouldBeginEditing:(UITextField *) textField
{
    if ([_homeTeam.text isEqualToString:@"e.g. Under 18s"]) { // e.g. Under18s
        [_homeTeam setPlaceholder:@""];
    }
}

But the condition is never getting true. What am i missing here? _homeTeam.text is blank when i used NSlog to trace. Why is it so?

Please suggest.

try this link http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1328638/placeholder-in-uitextview — codercat, Nov 28 '13 at 06:59
What is the use of setting Place holder to @"" inside the `textFieldShouldBeginEditing` ? When you type a character in the text field it'll automatically hide the place holder. So what are you trying to do with this code ? — Midhun MP, Nov 28 '13 at 07:03

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 28 '13 at 06:56

change your if condition, it should be _homeTeam.placeholder not _homeTeam.text because you set placeholder text not a text of UITextField.

- (BOOL)textFieldShouldBeginEditing:(UITextField *) textField
{
    if ([_homeTeam.placeholder isEqualToString:@"e.g. Under 18s"]) { // e.g. Under18s
        [_homeTeam setPlaceholder:@""];
    }
}

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 28 '13 at 06:59

You actually want to compare against the placeholder property, not text (which is input by the user).

Also, I would instead refer to textField (instead of _homeTeam directly, as you might add other text fields later), as such:

- (BOOL)textFieldShouldBeginEditing:(UITextField *) textField
{
    if ([textField.placeholder isEqualToString:@"e.g. Under 18s"]) { // e.g. Under18s
        [textField setPlaceholder:@""];
    }
}

Compare Placeholder Text in text field

2 Answers2