I'm trying to implement a copy/paste function. How can I get a selection of text from an EditText?
EditText et=(EditText)findViewById(R.id.title); blabla onclicklistener on a button:
int startSelection=et.getSelectionStart(); int endSelection=et.getSelectionEnd(); Then I'm stuck. Any ideas?
Seems like you've already done the hard part by finding what the selected area is. Now you just need to pull that substring out of the full text.
Try this:
String selectedText = et.getText().substring(startSelection, endSelection); It's just a basic Java String operation.
You should use a special function from the Editable object:
Editable txt = et.getText(); txt.replace(int st, int en, CharSequence source) This command replaces the part specified with (st..en) with the String (CharSequence).
you don't need to do all this, just long press on edit text it will show you all relevant options to Copy/Paste/Select etc. If you want to save the text use the method shown by mbaird
String selectedText = et.getText().toString().substring(startSelection, endSelection);
getText() returns an editable. substring needs a String. toString() connects them properly.
You can do it this way to get the selected text from EditText:
EditText editText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText3); int min = 0; int max = editText.getText().length(); if (editText.isFocused()) { final int selStart = editText.getSelectionStart(); final int selEnd = editText.getSelectionEnd(); min = Math.max(0, Math.min(selStart, selEnd)); max = Math.max(0, Math.max(selStart, selEnd)); } // here is your selected text final CharSequence selectedText = editText.getText().subSequence(min, max); String text = selectedText.toString(); 
