public class CountriesActivity extends Activity {
     protected void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
         super.onCreate(icicle);
         setContentView(R.layout.countries);

         ArrayAdapter<String> adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,
                 android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line, COUNTRIES);
         AutoCompleteTextView textView = (AutoCompleteTextView)
                 findViewById(R.id.countries_list);
         textView.setAdapter(adapter);
     }

     private static final String[] COUNTRIES = new String[] {
         "Belgium", "France", "Italy", "Germany", "Spain"
     };
 }
 

An editable text view that shows completion suggestions automatically while the user is typing. The list of suggestions is displayed in a drop down menu from which the user can choose an item to replace the content of the edit box with.

The drop down can be dismissed at any time by pressing the back key or, if no item is selected in the drop down, by pressing the enter/dpad center key.

The list of suggestions is obtained from a data adapter and appears only after a given number of characters defined by AutoCompleteTextView.Threshold.

The following code snippet shows how to create a text view which suggests various countries names while the user is typing:

See the Text Fields guide.

[Android Documentation]