Limiting the number of characters in a JTextField

Question

You can do something like this (taken from here):

import java.awt.FlowLayout;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import javax.swing.text.AttributeSet;
import javax.swing.text.BadLocationException;
import javax.swing.text.PlainDocument;

class JTextFieldLimit extends PlainDocument {
  private int limit;
  JTextFieldLimit(int limit) {
    super();
    this.limit = limit;
  }

  JTextFieldLimit(int limit, boolean upper) {
    super();
    this.limit = limit;
  }

  public void insertString(int offset, String str, AttributeSet attr) throws BadLocationException {
    if (str == null)
      return;

    if ((getLength() + str.length()) <= limit) {
      super.insertString(offset, str, attr);
    }
  }
}

public class Main extends JFrame {
  JTextField textfield1;

  JLabel label1;

  public void init() {
    setLayout(new FlowLayout());
    label1 = new JLabel("max 10 chars");
    textfield1 = new JTextField(15);
    add(label1);
    add(textfield1);
    textfield1.setDocument(new JTextFieldLimit(10));

    setSize(300,300);
    setVisible(true);
  }
}

Edit: Take a look at this previous SO post. You could intercept key press events and add/ignore them according to the current amount of characters in the textfield.

Since the introduction of the DocumentFilter in Java 1.4, the need to override Document has been lessoned.

DocumentFilter provides the means for filtering content been passed to the Document before it actually reaches it.

These allows the field to continue to maintain what ever document it needs, while providing the means to filter the input from the user.

import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPasswordField;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException;
import javax.swing.text.AbstractDocument;
import javax.swing.text.AttributeSet;
import javax.swing.text.BadLocationException;
import javax.swing.text.DocumentFilter;

public class LimitTextField {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new LimitTextField();
    }

    public LimitTextField() {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
                } catch (ClassNotFoundException | InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException | UnsupportedLookAndFeelException ex) {
                    ex.printStackTrace();
                }

                JTextField pfPassword = new JTextField(20);
                ((AbstractDocument)pfPassword.getDocument()).setDocumentFilter(new LimitDocumentFilter(15));

                JFrame frame = new JFrame("Testing");
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                frame.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
                frame.add(pfPassword);
                frame.pack();
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }

    public class LimitDocumentFilter extends DocumentFilter {

        private int limit;

        public LimitDocumentFilter(int limit) {
            if (limit <= 0) {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("Limit can not be <= 0");
            }
            this.limit = limit;
        }

        @Override
        public void replace(FilterBypass fb, int offset, int length, String text, AttributeSet attrs) throws BadLocationException {
            int currentLength = fb.getDocument().getLength();
            int overLimit = (currentLength + text.length()) - limit - length;
            if (overLimit > 0) {
                text = text.substring(0, text.length() - overLimit);
            }
            if (text.length() > 0) {
                super.replace(fb, offset, length, text, attrs); 
            }
        }

    }

}

It's weird that the Swing toolkit doesn't include this functionality, but here's the best answer to your question:

    textField = new JTextField();
    textField.addKeyListener(new KeyAdapter() {
        @Override
        public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {
            if (txtGuess.getText().length() >= 3 ) // limit to 3 characters
                e.consume();
        }
    });

I use this in a fun guessing game example in my Udemy.com course "Learn Java Like a Kid". Cheers - Bryson