Getting current suggestion from `AutoCompleteTextView`

Question

How do you get the current top suggestion in an AutoCompleteTextView? I have it suggesting items, and I have a text change listener registered. I also have a list on the same screen. As they type, I want to scroll the list to the current "best" suggestion. But I can't figure out how to access the current suggestions, or at least the top suggestion. I guess I'm looking for something like AutoCompleteTextView.getCurrentSuggestions():

autoCompleteTextView.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
    public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
            String currentText = autoCompleteTextView.getText();
            String bestGuess = autoCompleteTextView.getCurrentSuggestions()[0];
            //                                      ^^^ mewthod doesn't exist
            doSomethingWithGuess(bestGuess);
        }
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count,
                int after) {
            // do nothing
        }
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
            // do nothing
        }
    });

Answer 1

I've done what you want to do with the following code:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.autocomplete_1);

    adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,
            android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line, COUNTRIES);
    AutoCompleteTextView textView = (AutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.edit);
    textView.setAdapter(adapter);

    adapter.registerDataSetObserver(new DataSetObserver() {
        @Override
        public void onChanged() {
            super.onChanged();
            Log.d(TAG, "dataset changed");
            Object item = adapter.getItem(0);

            Log.d(TAG, "item.toString "+ item.toString());
        }
    });
}

item.toString will print the text that is displayed on the first item.

Note that this will happen even if you aren't showing the pop-up (suggestions) yet. Also, you should check if there are any items that passed the filter criteria (aka the user's input).

To solve the first problem:

    int dropDownAnchor = textView.getDropDownAnchor();
    if(dropDownAnchor==0) {
        Log.d(TAG, "drop down id = 0"); // popup is not displayed
        return;
    }
    //do stuff

To solve the second problem, use getCount > 0

Answer 2

AutoCompleteTextView does not scroll down to the best selection, but narrows down the selection as you type. Here is an example of it: http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/views/hello-autocomplete.html

As I see it from AutoCompleteTextView there is no way to get current list of suggestions.

The only way seem to be writing custom version of ArrayAdapter and pass it to AutoCompleteTextView.setAdapter(..). Here is the source to ArrayAdapter. You must only change a method in inner class ArrayFilter.performFiltering() so that it exposes FilterResults:

.. add field to inner class ArrayFilter:

public ArrayList<T> lastResults;  //add this line

.. before end of method performFiltering:

  lastResults = (ArrayList<T>) results; // add this line
  return results;
}

Using it like this (adapted example from link):

AutoCompleteTextView textView = (AutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.autocomplete_country);
CustomArrayAdapter<String> adapter = new CustomArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.list_item, COUNTRIES);
textView.setAdapter(adapter);

// read suggestions
ArrayList<String> suggestions = adapter.getFilter().lastResult;