Question

I want to auto complete a text field from a custom value

Having researched Google and SO here UITextField Autocomplete – iPhone SDK

I tried this:

- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string {

    if ([string isEqualToString:@"Fac"]) {
        _clientField.text = @"Factory";
    }

    return YES;
}

Problem is I get no predicted value entered Factory, just the typed value Fac

EDIT

Tried this based on answers…

- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string {

if ([string isEqualToString:@"Fac"]) {
    _clientField.text = [_clientField.text stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:range
                                                   withString:@"Factory"];
  }

  return NO;
}

Still the same

Answer 1

I checked your sample code and the text field’s delegate is not set.

You can set it in your view controller using

_clientField.delegate = self;

Additionally you need to use a slightly different method to get the text which the users sees. Something like this:

- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string {
    NSString *currentString = [textField.text stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:range withString:string];
    if ([currentString isEqualToString:@"Fac"]) {
        textField.text = @"Factory";
        return NO;
    }
    return YES;
}

Note that you probably want to fine tune this a bit, since it e.g. also autocompletes when the user deletes text. But this should get you on the right track.