AutoCompleteTextView not completing words inside parentheses

Question

I have implemented AutoCompleteTextView as follows:

MainActivity.java

...
    public static String[] myData=new String[]{"Africa (AF)","America (AFM)","Apple (AMP)"};
    text=(AutoCompleteTextView)v.findViewById(R.id.first_state);
    ArrayAdapter adapter = new ArrayAdapter(getActivity(),R.layout.autocompletetextview_row,R.id.textViewItem,myData);

    text.setAdapter(adapter);
    text.setThreshold(1);
    text.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
        public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long rowId) {

            selected_station = (String)parent.getItemAtPosition(position);
            //TODO Do something with the selected text
        }
    });

In layout of AutoCompleteTextView:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:background="#FFFFFF"
    android:padding="10dp" >
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textViewItem"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:text="Item name here..."
        android:textColor="#000000"
        android:textSize="20sp" />
 </RelativeLayout>

When I type like "af..", it shows me Africa (AF) to select but not America (AFM).

The data is just an example data. it's not that I am using AutoCompleteTextView for just 3 items.

EDIT: when I remove the parentheses, it works properly. But I need to keep the parentheses for further use.

Answer 1

The default implementation of the filter for ArrayAdapter is searching the beginning of words (separated by space), I mean it uses startsWith. You will need to implement an ArrayFilter which uses contains together with startsWith.

Your issue will be solved by the following steps:

• Download the ArrayAdapter.java file from here
• Add that file into the project (you can refactor by renaming file to CustomArrayAdapter.java, for example).

• In the file, you will find a private class ArrayFilter. Then, add valueText.contains(prefixString) and words[k].contains(prefixString) as the following:

              if (valueText.startsWith(prefixString) || valueText.contains(prefixString)) {
                  newValues.add(value);
              } else {
                  final String[] words = valueText.split(" ");
                  final int wordCount = words.length;
                  // Start at index 0, in case valueText starts with space(s)
                  for (int k = 0; k < wordCount; k++) {
                      if (words[k].startsWith(prefixString) || words[k].contains(prefixString)) {
                          newValues.add(value);
                          break;
                      }
                  }
              }
  

• Use that customized ArrayAdapter for your AutoCompleteTextView

And here is the result screenshot:

Hope this helps!