How do you set the value of a TextField in Flutter

Question

I'd like to supply an initial value to a text field and redraw it with an empty value to clear the text. What's the best approach to do that with Flutter's APIs?

Answer 1

To supply an initial value to a text field in Flutter, you can set the controller property of the TextField widget to a TextEditingController that contains the initial value. Here's an example:

TextEditingController _controller = TextEditingController(text: 'Initial Value');

TextField(
  controller: _controller,
  onChanged: (text) {
    // Do something when the text changes
  },
);

To clear the text field, you can call the clear() method of the TextEditingController instance. For example:

_controller.clear();

This will clear the text in the text field and trigger a redraw.

Alternatively, you can also set the value property of the TextEditingController to a TextEditingValue with an empty string to clear the text. Here's an example:

_controller.value = TextEditingValue(text: '');

This will also clear the text and trigger a redraw.