How to use UITextRange to get substring from a UITextField

Question

So I am using selectedTextRange to get a cursor position from my UITextField. I would like to obtain a substring from the beginning of my TextField text up to the cursor position. How would I go about doing this? I am able to create the UITextRange I want but I don't know how to use this to get the actual substring since substringWithRange seems to only work with NSRange. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You need to use the methods from the UITextInput protocol, which is implemented by all text views, to do this. With a text range, you can simply call textInRange: to get the text.

To get the text from the beginning of the field up to the selected position, you'll need to make a text range first with textRangeFromPosition:toPosition:, passing beginningOfDocument for the first argument, and the start of your text range for the second argument.