Auto-Completion Edit Control

This article describes a class (CACEditCtrl) for an Auto-Completion Edit Control, which can be used small data sets, such as most-recently-used account numbers, etc.

It works by iterating over a collection of STL strings and tries to find a matching beginning-substring in the entry. It is not the most the most effecient way of doing it, but it works well for small data sets.

The two functions of interest are:

• void AddACEntry( LPCTSTR cpEntry )
• void DisableAC( bool bDisable = true )

The AddACEntry(...) function is used to add a string to the control's collection of strings. No duplicate checking is done. Why? Because this control acts as a container for data, not a manager of data.

The DisableAC(...) function allows you to turn the Auto-Completion feature on or off.

In the demo image above, the numbered dialogs show the operation of the control as 3 characters are typed into it :"T", "h", and "a" as shown below:

1. No characters typed
2. A "T" was typed into the control, and it auto-completed with its first match
3. A "h" was typed into the control, ditto above
4. An "a" was typed into the control, and there were no matches to auto-complete for

Conditions of use are detailed in the header and source file(s).

Feel free to contact me if there are any questions. Have fun.