TextBoxBase.MaxLength Property

Definition

Namespace:

System.Windows.Forms

Assembly:

System.Windows.Forms.dll

Gets or sets the maximum number of characters the user can type or paste into the text box control.

public:
 virtual property int MaxLength { int get(); void set(int value); };

public virtual int MaxLength { get; set; }

member this.MaxLength : int with get, set

Public Overridable Property MaxLength As Integer

Property Value

Int32

The number of characters that can be entered into the control. The default is 32767.

Exceptions

ArgumentOutOfRangeException

The value assigned to the property is less than 0.

Examples

The following code example uses the derived class, TextBox, to create a text box that is used to accept a password. This example uses the CharacterCasing property to change all characters typed to uppercase and the MaxLength property to restrict the password length to eight characters. This example also uses the TextAlign property to center the password in the TextBox control.

public:
   void CreateMyPasswordTextBox()
   {
      // Create an instance of the TextBox control.
      TextBox^ textBox1 = gcnew TextBox;
      // Set the maximum length of text in the control to eight.
      textBox1->MaxLength = 8;
      // Assign the asterisk to be the password character.
      textBox1->PasswordChar = '*';
      // Change all text entered to be uppercase.
      textBox1->CharacterCasing = CharacterCasing::Upper;
      // Align the text in the center of the TextBox control.
      textBox1->TextAlign = HorizontalAlignment::Center;
   }

public void CreateMyPasswordTextBox()
 {
    // Create an instance of the TextBox control.
    TextBox textBox1 = new TextBox();
    // Set the maximum length of text in the control to eight.
    textBox1.MaxLength = 8;
    // Assign the asterisk to be the password character.
    textBox1.PasswordChar = '*';
    // Change all text entered to be uppercase.
    textBox1.CharacterCasing = CharacterCasing.Upper;
    // Align the text in the center of the TextBox control.
    textBox1.TextAlign = HorizontalAlignment.Center;
 }

Public Sub CreateMyPasswordTextBox()
    ' Create an instance of the TextBox control.
    Dim textBox1 As New TextBox()
    ' Set the maximum length of text in the control to eight.
    textBox1.MaxLength = 8
    ' Assign the asterisk to be the password character.
    textBox1.PasswordChar = "*"c
    ' Change all text entered to be uppercase.
    textBox1.CharacterCasing = CharacterCasing.Upper
    ' Align the text in the center of the TextBox control.
    textBox1.TextAlign = HorizontalAlignment.Center
End Sub

Remarks

You can use this property to restrict the length of text entered in the control for values such as postal codes and telephone numbers, or to restrict the length of text entered when the data is to be entered in a database. You can limit the text entered into the control to the maximum length of the corresponding field in the database.

Note

In code, you can set the value of the Text property to a value that has a length greater than the value specified by the MaxLength property. This property only affects text entered into the control at run time.