How to print out the input or JTextFiled

Question

As a part of my program, I just want to print out what the user enters in the jTextField

here is what I do, but does not work at all.

JTextField myInput = new JTextField();
String word = myInput.getText();

myInput.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) 
{
System.out.print(word);
}

});

Any idea?

Answer 1

In the actionlistener you need to retrieve the value from the textfield.

 System.out.print(myInput.getText());

At the moment, you are getting a empty value because at the point where you call getText() there is nothing in the textfield because the user did not have time to type something.

Answer 2

You aren't updating the text (word) in actionPerformed, so it's staying the same. Try:

myInput.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) 
{
System.out.print(myInput.getText());
}

Therefore, you don't even need to declare word at all.

Answer 3

take the 2nd line inside the action performed method

Answer 4

final JTextField myInput = new JTextField();

myInput.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        System.out.print(myInput.getText());
    }
});

Calling myInput.getText() outside the actionListener will assign empty string to word.

Answer 5

Thank you everyone for your answers. In fact you are all right and I just need to delcare the variable as final. I still do not know why I should add that but it's working now. I hope that 'final' doesn't make make any problem later.