EditText widget in Android with Example (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 12 Jul, 2025

**Widget refers to the elements of the UI (User Interface) that helps user interacts with the Android App. **EditText is one of many such widgets which can be used to retrieve text data from user.

**EditText refers to the widget that displays an empty text field in which a user can enter the required text and this text is further used inside our application.

**Class Syntax:

public class EditText extends TextView

**Class Hierarchy:

java.lang.Object
↳android.view.View
↳ android.widget.TextView
↳ android.widget.EditText

Here the layout can be any layout like Relative, Linear, etc (Refer this article to learn more about layouts). And the attributes can be many among the table given below in this article.

**Example:

XML `

<EditText
    android:id="@+id/edit_text"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:text="GeeksForGeeks" />

`

**How to include a EditText in an Android App?

• First of all, Create a new Android app, or take an existing app to edit it. In both the case, there must be an **XML layout activity file and a **Java class file linked to this activity.
• Open the Activity file and include a EditText field in the layout (activity_main.xml) file of the activity and also add a Button in activity_main.xml file too.
• Now in the Java file, link this layout file with the below code: MainActivity.java `

@Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); }

MainActivity.kt

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState) setContentView(R.layout.activity_main) }

`

where activity_main.xml is the name of the layout file to be attached.

• Now we will add code in _MainActivity file to make our layout interactive or responsive. Our application will generate a toast on clicking the button with the text as entered by user.
• The complete code of the layout file and the Java/Kotlin file is given below.

Below is the implementation of the above approach:

activity_main.xml:

activity_main.xml `

<EditText
    android:id="@+id/text_view_id"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:autofillHints="name"
    android:inputType="text"
    android:hint="Enter your name..." />

<com.google.android.material.button.MaterialButton
    android:id="@+id/button_id"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="56dp"
    android:layout_marginTop="32dp"
    android:text="Submit"
    android:textColor="@color/white"
    android:backgroundTint="@color/green"/>

`

Here's the code for the MainActivity:

Java `

package org.geeksforgeeks.demo;

import android.os.Bundle; import android.view.View; import android.widget.Button; import android.widget.EditText; import android.widget.Toast; import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

// Declare UI elements: EditText for user input and Button for submission
private EditText editText;
private Button button;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    // Link EditText and Button to their UI elements
    editText = findViewById(R.id.text_view_id);
    button = findViewById(R.id.button_id);

    // Set OnClickListener for the button
    button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {
            String name = editText.getText().toString();

            // Display a Toast message showing the input text
            Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, name, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        }
    });
}

}

Kotlin

package org.geeksforgeeks.demo

import android.os.Bundle import android.widget.Button import android.widget.EditText import android.widget.Toast import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {

// Declare UI elements: EditText for user input and Button for submission
private lateinit var editText: EditText
private lateinit var button: Button

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

    // Link the EditText and Button variables to their UI elements in activity_main.xml
    editText = findViewById(R.id.text_view_id);
    button = findViewById(R.id.button_id);

    // Set up an onClickListener for the button to handle click events
    button.setOnClickListener {
        val name = editText.text.toString();

        // Display a short message (Toast) showing a welcome message with the user's input
        Toast.makeText(this, name, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show()
    }
}

}

`

**Output:

Upon starting of the App, entering a name in EditText and pressing the "Submit" button, the name in the EditText is then displayed as a Toast:

For learning more about the topic refer to these articles:

• Working With the EditText in Android
• How to add Mask to an EditText in Android

Some Important XML Attributes of EditText in Android