Android - Formatting phone number in EditText

Question

I need a little assistance making this to work, because server side API requires special format for phone number field. Maybe I could edit that field just before sending API request by replacing characters at specific positions, however that would still give the user freedom to insert wrong format for phone number. I need to make EditText assist him just right after he changed the text and direct him to right format.

For that I have used TextWatcher method afterTextChanged() and format which I need is next: (063)22-22-333

This is what I have tried:

private static final char space = '-';
private static final char brackets = '(';
private static final char brackets1 = ')';

etPhone.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {

        }

        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {

        }

        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
            // (063)22-22-333

            // -> Error

            if (s.length() > 0 && !s.toString().startsWith("(")) {
                s.replace(0, s.length(), "(0");
            }

            if (s.length() > 0 && s.length() == 8) {
                final char c = s.charAt(s.length() - 1);
                if (space == c) {
                    s.delete(s.length() - 1, s.length());
                }
            } else if (s.length() > 0 && s.length() == 5) {
                final char c = s.charAt(s.length() - 1);
                if (brackets1 == c) {
                    s.delete(s.length() - 1, s.length());
                }
            }

            // Insert char where needed.
            if (s.length() > 0 && s.length() == 8) {
                char c = s.charAt(s.length() - 1);
                // Only if its a digit where there should be a space we insert a space
                if (Character.isDigit(c) && TextUtils.split(s.toString(), String.valueOf(space)).length <= 7) {
                    s.insert(s.length() - 1, String.valueOf(space));
                }
            } else if (s.length() > 0 && s.length() == 5) {
                char c = s.charAt(s.length() - 1);
                if (Character.isDigit(c) && TextUtils.split(s.toString(), String.valueOf(brackets1)).length <= 4) {
                    s.insert(s.length() - 1, String.valueOf(brackets1));
                }
            }
        }
    });

I'm getting an error after writing 4 character. Error is showing at the beginning.

Answer 1

You are using the split() method which needs as its 2nd parameter a regular expression and here is your problem: you need to escape "(" and ")" in regular expressions. So I made some changes:

private static final char space = '-';
private static final char brackets = '(';
private static final char brackets1 = ')';
private static final String sspace = "\\x32";
private static final String sbrackets = "\\x28";
private static final String sbrackets1 = "\\x29";

    etPhone.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {

        }

        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {

        }

        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
            // (063)22-22-333

            // -> Error

            if (s.length() > 0 && !s.toString().startsWith("(")) {
                s.replace(0, s.length(), "(0");
            }

            if (s.length() > 0 && s.length() == 8) {
                final char c = s.charAt(s.length() - 1);
                if (space == c) {
                    s.delete(s.length() - 1, s.length());
                }
            } else if (s.length() > 0 && s.length() == 5) {
                final char c = s.charAt(s.length() - 1);
                if (brackets1 == c) {
                    s.delete(s.length() - 1, s.length());
                }
            }

            // Insert char where needed.
            if (s.length() > 0 && s.length() == 8) {
                char c = s.charAt(s.length() - 1);
                // Only if its a digit where there should be a space we insert a space
                if (Character.isDigit(c) && TextUtils.split(s.toString(), sspace).length <= 7) {
                    s.insert(s.length() - 1, String.valueOf(space));
                }
            } else if (s.length() > 0 && s.length() == 5) {
                char c = s.charAt(s.length() - 1);
                if (Character.isDigit(c) && TextUtils.split(s.toString(), sbrackets1).length <= 4) {
                    s.insert(s.length() - 1, String.valueOf(brackets1));
                }
            }
        }
    });

Now you get no crash after the 3d char.
Every time you want to use split() instead of String.valueOf(brackets1) use brackets1 or sbrackets or sspace

Answer 2

You might have an easier time converting from a common format to the format that the server side is expecting. To get to a standard format, there are a couple of classes which already exist that might help you. Have you looked at PhoneNumberFormattingTextWatcher ?

If you absolutely need to use your own watcher, there are other utils that can help you:

// this will result in the string "(212) 555-2232"
String number = PhoneNumberUtils.formatNumber("2125552232", "US")

After getting a predictable result, it should be trivial to convert to whatever your server needs.