Set the maximum character length of a UITextField in Swift

Question

I know there are other topics on this but I can't seem to find out how to implement it.

I'm trying to limit a UITextField to only 5 Characters

Preferably Alphanumeric and - and . and _

I've seen this code

func textField(textField: UITextField, shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange,
                       replacementString string: String) -> Bool
{
    let maxLength = 4
    let currentString: NSString = textField.text
    let newString: NSString =
             currentString.stringByReplacingCharactersInRange(range, withString: string)
    return newString.length <= maxLength
}

and

func textField(textField: UITextField, shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange, replacementString string: String) -> Bool {

    let length = count(textField.text.utf16) + count(string.utf16) - range.length
    return length <= 10 
}

I just don't know how to actually implement it or which "textfield" should I swap out for my custom named UITextField

Answer 1

1. Your view controller should conform to UITextFieldDelegate, like below:

   class MyViewController: UIViewController, UITextFieldDelegate {
   
   }
   

2. Set the delegate of your textfield: myTextField.delegate = self

3. Implement the method in your view controller : textField(_:shouldChangeCharactersInRange:replacementString:)

All together:

class MyViewController: UIViewController,UITextFieldDelegate  //set delegate to class 

@IBOutlet var mytextField: UITextField             //  textfield variable 

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    mytextField.delegate = self                  //set delegate
}


func textField(textField: UITextField, shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange,
                       replacementString string: String) -> Bool
{
    let maxLength = 4
    let currentString: NSString = textField.text
    let newString: NSString =
             currentString.stringByReplacingCharactersInRange(range, withString: string)
    return newString.length <= maxLength
}

For Swift 4

func textField(_ textField: UITextField, shouldChangeCharactersIn range: NSRange, replacementString string: String) -> Bool {
    let maxLength = 1
    let currentString: NSString = (textField.text ?? "") as NSString
    let newString: NSString =
        currentString.replacingCharacters(in: range, with: string) as NSString
    return newString.length <= maxLength
}

Allowing only a specified set of characters to be entered into a given text field

func textField(textField: UITextField, shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange, replacementString string: String) -> Bool {
  var result = true
  
  if mytextField == numberField {
    if count(string) > 0 {
      let disallowedCharacterSet = NSCharacterSet(charactersInString: "0123456789.-").invertedSet
      let replacementStringIsLegal = string.rangeOfCharacterFromSet(disallowedCharacterSet) == nil
      result = replacementStringIsLegal
    }
  }
 
  return result
}

How to program an iOS text field that takes only numeric input with a maximum length