List View Filter Android

Question

I have created a list view in android and I want to add edit text above the list and when the user enter text the list will be filtered according to user input

can a

Answer 1

In case anyone are still interested in this subject, I find that the best approach for filtering lists is to create a generic Filter class and use it with some base reflection/generics techniques contained in the Java old school SDK package. Here's what I did:

public class GenericListFilter extends Filter {

    /**
     * Copycat constructor
     * @param list  the original list to be used
     */
    public GenericListFilter (List list, String reflectMethodName, ArrayAdapter adapter) {
        super ();

        mInternalList = new ArrayList<>(list);
        mAdapterUsed  = adapter;

        try {
            ParameterizedType stringListType = (ParameterizedType)
                    getClass().getField("mInternalList").getGenericType();
            mCompairMethod =
                    stringListType.getActualTypeArguments()[0].getClass().getMethod(reflectMethodName);
        }
        catch (Exception ex) {
            Log.w("GenericListFilter", ex.getMessage(), ex);

            try {
                if (mInternalList.size() > 0) {
                    T type = mInternalList.get(0);
                    mCompairMethod = type.getClass().getMethod(reflectMethodName);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception e) {
                Log.e("GenericListFilter", e.getMessage(), e);
            }

        }
    }

    /**
     * Let's filter the data with the given constraint
     * @param constraint
     * @return
     */
    @Override protected FilterResults performFiltering(CharSequence constraint) {
        FilterResults results = new FilterResults();
        List filteredContents = new ArrayList<>();

        if ( constraint.length() > 0 ) {
            try {
                for (T obj : mInternalList) {
                    String result = (String) mCompairMethod.invoke(obj);
                    if (result.toLowerCase().startsWith(constraint.toString().toLowerCase())) {
                        filteredContents.add(obj);
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex) {
                Log.e("GenericListFilter", ex.getMessage(), ex);
            }
        }
        else {
            filteredContents.addAll(mInternalList);
        }

        results.values = filteredContents;
        results.count  = filteredContents.size();
        return results;
    }

    /**
     * Publish the filtering adapter list
     * @param constraint
     * @param results
     */
    @Override protected void publishResults(CharSequence constraint, FilterResults results) {
        mAdapterUsed.clear();
        mAdapterUsed.addAll((List) results.values);

        if ( results.count == 0 ) {
            mAdapterUsed.notifyDataSetInvalidated();
        }
        else {
            mAdapterUsed.notifyDataSetChanged();
        }
    }

    // class properties
    private ArrayAdapter mAdapterUsed;
    private List mInternalList;
    private Method  mCompairMethod;
}

And afterwards, the only thing you need to do is to create the filter as a member class (possibly within the View's "onCreate") passing your adapter reference, your list, and the method to be called for filtering:

this.mFilter = new GenericFilter (list, "getName", adapter);

The only thing missing now, is to override the "getFilter" method in the adapter class:

@Override public Filter getFilter () {
     return MyViewClass.this.mFilter;
}

All done! You should successfully filter your list - Of course, you should also implement your filter algorithm the best way that describes your need, the code bellow is just an example.. Hope it helped, take care.