How to remove all listeners added with addTextChangedListener

Question

I have a ListView where each row has an EditText control. I want to add a TextChangedListener to each row; one that contains extra data which says which row the EditText was in. The problem is that as getView gets called, multiple TextWatchers are added; because the convertView already having a TextWatcher (and one that points to a different row).

MyTextWatcher watcher = new MyTextWatcher(currentQuestion);
EditText text = (EditText)convertView.findViewById(R.id.responseText);
text.addTextChangedListener(watcher);

MyTextWatcher is my class that implements TextWatcher; and handles the text events. CurrentQuestion lets me know which row I'm acting upon. When I type in the box; multiple instances of TextWatcher are called.

Is there any way to remove the TextWatchers before adding the new one? I see the removeTextChangedListener method, but that requires a specific TextWatcher to be passed in, and I don't know how to get the pointer to the TextWatcher that is already there.

Answer 1

There is no way to do this using current EditText interface directly. I see two possible solutions:

1. Redesign your application so you always know what TextWatcher are added to particular EditText instance.
2. Extend EditText and add possibility to clear all watchers.

Here is an example of second approach - ExtendedEditText:

public class ExtendedEditText extends EditText
{   
    private ArrayList<TextWatcher> mListeners = null;

    public ExtendedEditText(Context ctx)
    {
        super(ctx);
    }

    public ExtendedEditText(Context ctx, AttributeSet attrs)
    {
        super(ctx, attrs);
    }

    public ExtendedEditText(Context ctx, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle)
    {       
        super(ctx, attrs, defStyle);
    }

    @Override
    public void addTextChangedListener(TextWatcher watcher)
    {       
        if (mListeners == null) 
        {
            mListeners = new ArrayList<TextWatcher>();
        }
        mListeners.add(watcher);

        super.addTextChangedListener(watcher);
    }

    @Override
    public void removeTextChangedListener(TextWatcher watcher)
    {       
        if (mListeners != null) 
        {
            int i = mListeners.indexOf(watcher);
            if (i >= 0) 
            {
                mListeners.remove(i);
            }
        }

        super.removeTextChangedListener(watcher);
    }

    public void clearTextChangedListeners()
    {
        if(mListeners != null)
        {
            for(TextWatcher watcher : mListeners)
            {
                super.removeTextChangedListener(watcher);
            }

            mListeners.clear();
            mListeners = null;
        }
    }
}

And here is how you can use ExtendedEditText in xml layouts:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical" 
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent">

    <ua.inazaruk.HelloWorld.ExtendedEditText 
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
        android:text="header"
        android:gravity="center" /> 

</LinearLayout>