Android: TextView automatically truncate and replace last 3 char of String

Question

If a String is longer than the TextView's width it automatically wraps onto the next line. I can avoid this by using android:singleLine (deprecated) or by setting android:inputType="text". What I now need is something that replaces the last 3 characters of my String with "...". Since I'm not using a monospace font this will always be different depending on the letters used in my String. So I'm wondering what's the best way to get the last 3 characters of a String in a TextView and replace them. Maybe there's already something implemented in the Android framework, since this must me a common problem.

Answer 1

Don't know much about Android, but I'd start with apache commons lang

StringUtils.abbreviate

Abbreviates a String using ellipses. This will turn "Now is the time for all good men" into "Now is the time for..."

Specifically:

    * If str is less than maxWidth characters long, return it.
    * Else abbreviate it to (substring(str, 0, max-3) + "...").
    * If maxWidth is less than 4, throw an IllegalArgumentException.
    * In no case will it return a String of length greater than maxWidth.

 StringUtils.abbreviate(null, *)      = null
 StringUtils.abbreviate("", 4)        = ""
 StringUtils.abbreviate("abcdefg", 6) = "abc..."
 StringUtils.abbreviate("abcdefg", 7) = "abcdefg"
 StringUtils.abbreviate("abcdefg", 8) = "abcdefg"
 StringUtils.abbreviate("abcdefg", 4) = "a..."
 StringUtils.abbreviate("abcdefg", 3) = IllegalArgumentException
 

Answer 2

You should be able to use the "ellipsize" property of a text view:

        <TextView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:id="@+id/text_mytext"
            android:ellipsize="end"
            android:singleLine="true"
            />

You may also need to apply gravity values to the layout too; I have sometimes seen "auto-stretching" views without them.