Allow only alphanumeric characters for a UITextField

Question

How would I go about allowing inputting only alphanumeric characters in an iOS UITextField?

Answer 1

This is how I do it:

// Define some constants:
#define ALPHA                   @"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
#define NUMERIC                 @"1234567890"
#define ALPHA_NUMERIC           ALPHA NUMERIC

// Make sure you are the text fields 'delegate', then this will get called before text gets changed.
- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string {

    // This will be the character set of characters I do not want in my text field.  Then if the replacement string contains any of the characters, return NO so that the text does not change.
    NSCharacterSet *unacceptedInput = nil;

    // I have 4 types of textFields in my view, each one needs to deny a specific set of characters:
    if (textField == emailField) {
        //  Validating an email address doesnt work 100% yet, but I am working on it....  The rest work great!
        if ([[textField.text componentsSeparatedByString:@"@"] count] > 1) {
            unacceptedInput = [[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:[ALPHA_NUMERIC stringByAppendingString:@".-"]] invertedSet];
        } else {
            unacceptedInput = [[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:[ALPHA_NUMERIC stringByAppendingString:@".!#$%&'*+-/=?^_`{|}~@"]] invertedSet];
        }
    } else if (textField == phoneField) {
        unacceptedInput = [[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:NUMERIC] invertedSet];
    } else if (textField == fNameField || textField == lNameField) {
        unacceptedInput = [[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:ALPHA] invertedSet];
    } else {
        unacceptedInput = [[NSCharacterSet illegalCharacterSet] invertedSet];
    }

    // If there are any characters that I do not want in the text field, return NO.
    return ([[string componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:unacceptedInput] count] <= 1);
}

Check out the UITextFieldDelegate Reference too.