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How do I make a textbox that only accepts numbers?

Asked 2009-01-20T21:55:01.070
700

I have a windows forms app with a textbox control that I want to only accept integer values. In the past I've done this kind of validation by overloading the KeyPress event and just removing characters which didn't fit the specification. I've looked at the MaskedTextBox control but I'd like a more general solution that could work with perhaps a regular expression, or depend on the values of other controls.

Ideally this would behave such that pressing a non numeric character would either produce no result or immediately provide the user with feedback about the invalid character.

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3 Answers

40

Here is a simple standalone Winforms custom control, derived from the standard TextBox, that allows only System.Int32 input (it could be easily adapted for other types such as System.Int64, etc.). It supports copy/paste operations and negative numbers:

public class Int32TextBox : TextBox
{
    protected override void OnKeyPress(KeyPressEventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnKeyPress(e);

        NumberFormatInfo fi = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.NumberFormat;

        string c = e.KeyChar.ToString();
        if (char.IsDigit(c, 0))
            return;

        if ((SelectionStart == 0) && (c.Equals(fi.NegativeSign)))
            return;

        // copy/paste
        if ((((int)e.KeyChar == 22) || ((int)e.KeyChar == 3))
            && ((ModifierKeys & Keys.Control) == Keys.Control))
            return;

        if (e.KeyChar == '\b')
            return;

        e.Handled = true;
    }

    protected override void WndProc(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m)
    {
        const int WM_PASTE = 0x0302;
        if (m.Msg == WM_PASTE)
        {
            string text = Clipboard.GetText();
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
                return;

            if ((text.IndexOf('+') >= 0) && (SelectionStart != 0))
                return;

            int i;
            if (!int.TryParse(text, out i)) // change this for other integer types
                return;

            if ((i < 0) && (SelectionStart != 0))
                return;
        }
        base.WndProc(ref m);
    }

Update 2017: My first answer has some issues:

  • you can type something that's longer than an integer of a given type (for example 2147483648 is greater than Int32.MaxValue);
  • more generally, there's no real validation of the result of what has been typed;
  • it only handles int32, you'll have to write specific TextBox derivated control for each type (Int64, etc.)<
answered 2012-09-11T16:23:46.593
4

I have made something for this on CodePlex.

It works by intercepting the TextChanged event. If the result is a good number it will be stored. If it is something wrong, the last good value will be restored. The source is a bit too large to publish here, but here is a link to the class that handles the core of this logic.

answered 2009-01-20T22:18:13.893
0
int Number;
bool isNumber;
isNumber = int32.TryPase(textbox1.text, out Number);

if (!isNumber)
{ 
    (code if not an integer);
}
else
{
    (code if an integer);
}
answered 2011-11-20T05:14:25.350

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