how to get the text of a edit text when after pressing a key

I want to search a ListView when user types a text in a EditText. after pressing a key I need to get the typed part of text to begin the search. so is there any method I can use?? simple help is highly appreciated.

If you're using an ArrayAdapter to populate your ListView, then do it like this:

   edittext.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
    @Override
    public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {

    }

    @Override
    public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {

            yourAdapter.getFilter().filter(s);
    }

    @Override
    public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {

    }
});

Add a TextWatch to your EditText and user the filter in your adapter to show the results that match. To highlight the matched result , you may want to use SpannableString for "prettyfying" it.

From ArrayAdapter.getFilter():

Returns a filter that can be used to constrain data with a filtering pattern.

This method is usually implemented by Adapter classes.