How to add space to AutoCompleteTextView suggestion

Question

I would like to add space when the user select text from the auto complete suggestions, so when he continue to type he will start from a new word.

I tried to do it using TextWatcher but I get IndexOutOfBoundsException.

Any suggestions?

the text watcher I used is:

    private class AddSpaceTextWatcher implements TextWatcher{

    boolean shouldAddSpace = false;

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

    }

    @Override
    public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
        if (count - before > 1) // check that the new input is not from the keyboard
            shouldAddSpace = true;
    }

    @Override
    public void afterTextChanged(Editable editable) {
        if (shouldAddSpace) {
            shouldAddSpace = false;
            mAutoCompleteTextView.setText(" ");
        }
    }
}

The exception I get is:

java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: setSpan (18 ... 18) ends beyond length 1
        at android.text.SpannableStringBuilder.checkRange(SpannableStringBuilder.java:1018)
        at android.text.SpannableStringBuilder.setSpan(SpannableStringBuilder.java:611)
        at android.text.SpannableStringBuilder.setSpan(SpannableStringBuilder.java:607)
        at android.text.Selection.setSelection(Selection.java:76)
        at android.text.Selection.setSelection(Selection.java:87)
        at android.widget.EditText.setSelection(EditText.java:99)
        at android.widget.SearchView.setQuery(SearchView.java:1465)
        at android.widget.SearchView.onQueryRefine(SearchView.java:889)
        at android.widget.SuggestionsAdapter.onClick(SuggestionsAdapter.java:371)
        at android.view.View.performClick(View.java:4756)
        at android.view.View$PerformClick.run(View.java:19748)
        at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739)
        at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
        at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:135)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5254)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:372)
        at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:898)
        at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:693)

Answer 1

For selecting multiple items, you can simply use MultiAutoCompleteTextView which is a subclass of AutoCompleteTextView specifically built for this purpose.

OR

If you just want to append a space at the end making only one item selectable than try this:

public void afterTextChanged(Editable editable) {
    String text = editable.toString();
    if (shouldAddSpace && text.length() > 0 && !text.endsWith(" ")) {
        editable.append(' ');
    }
}

Edit:

Once the space is appended, you can simply call mAutoCompleteTextView.showDropDown(); to bring up the drop down again with updated text.