Date and time masking with text field - objective-c

Question

Hello everyone,
I am working on a project where requirement is keypad should not pop up when we clicked on the text field as we are making number pad for the particular text field and we have succeed for doing this by..
- (BOOL)textFieldShouldBeginEditing:(UITextField *)textField {
if (textField == dateFld) {
UIView* dummyView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 1, 1)];
textField.inputView = dummyView;
}
}
Now my problem is, I want to validate that text field to accept only particular format and limited number of input but i am unable to do this because the method for that is not getting called when we disabled the keypad to pop below is my code to validate the textfield.
- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string
{
//Format Date of Birth YYYY-MM-DD
if(textField == dateFld)
{
if ((dateFld.text.length == 4)||(dateFld.text.length == 7))
//Handle backspace being pressed
if (![string isEqualToString:#""])
dateFld.text = [dateFld.text stringByAppendingString:#"-"];
return !([textField.text length]>9 && [string length] > range.length);
}
else
return YES;
}
Please help me to over come from this problem or any other way to do this.
Thanks

Answer 1

I want to validate that text field to accept only particular format and limited number of input :
if(textField == dateFld){
NSCharacterSet* numberCharSet = [NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:#"0123456789+"];
for (int i = 0; i < [string length]; ++i)
{
unichar c = [string characterAtIndex:i];
if (![numberCharSet characterIsMember:c])
{
return NO;
}
}
//Format Date of Birth YYYY-MM-DD
if([textField.text length] == 4) {
textField.text=[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#-",textField.text];
}else if([textField.text length]==6){
textField.text=[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#-",textField.text];
}else if([textField.text length]==8){
textField.text=[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#",textField.text];
}
NSLog(#"value %#",textField.text);
NSUInteger newLength = [textField.text length] + [string length] - range.length;
return (newLength > 13) ? NO : YES;
}
}
It's working fine for me.

Answer 2

I would do something like this:
- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string
{
NSError *_error = nil;
NSRegularExpression *_regularExpression = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:#"^\\d{0,4}-{0,1}$|^\\d{4}-{1}\\d{0,2}-{0,1}$|^\\d{4}-{1}\\d{2}-{1}\\d{0,2}$" options:NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive error:&_error];
NSMutableString *_newText = [NSMutableString stringWithString:textField.text];
[_newText insertString:string atIndex:range.location];
NSArray *_matches = [_regularExpression matchesInString:_newText options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, _newText.length)];
return _matches.count > 0;
}
EDIT#1 (on 22/01/13)
of course, your class has to be a delegate class of your UITextField, otherwise the method above will be never called back.
there are some additional steps how you can do it.
in the YourViewController.h file:
#interface YourViewController : UIViewController <UITextFieldDelegate> {
// ...
}
#property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutlet UITextField *myTextField; // is case of ARC and iOS5+
#end
in your YourViewController.m file
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
// ...
[self.myTextField setDelegate:self]; // you can do the same thing in the interface builder as well.
}

Answer 3

You need to validate the inputs in your dummyView
UIView* dummyView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 1, 1)];
textField.inputView = dummyView;
since you replaced the input view of UITextField, UITextField delegates will not be called.