android:autoLink for phone numbers doesn't always work

Here is my investigation.

I created a new project, and added android:autoLink="all" to a text view in activity_main.xml. Thanks to the developers of Android Studio, I could see the preview, and I found something interesting:

• 12345 not linked
• 123456 not linked
• 1234567 linked
• 12345678 linked
• 123456789 not linked
• 1234567890 not likned
• 12345678901 linked
• 123456789012 not linked

The result is the same on my phone. So I looked into the source code, searched for the keyword autolink, then I found this:

private void setText(CharSequence text, BufferType type,
                     boolean notifyBefore, int oldlen) {

    ...
    // unconcerned code above

    if (mAutoLinkMask != 0) {
        Spannable s2;

        if (type == BufferType.EDITABLE || text instanceof Spannable) {
            s2 = (Spannable) text;
        } else {
            s2 = mSpannableFactory.newSpannable(text);
        }

        if (Linkify.addLinks(s2, mAutoLinkMask)) {
            text = s2;
            type = (type == BufferType.EDITABLE) ? BufferType.EDITABLE : BufferType.SPANNABLE;

            /*
             * We must go ahead and set the text before changing the
             * movement method, because setMovementMethod() may call
             * setText() again to try to upgrade the buffer type.
             */
            mText = text;

            // Do not change the movement method for text that support text selection as it
            // would prevent an arbitrary cursor displacement.
            if (mLinksClickable && !textCanBeSelected()) {
                setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
            }
        }
    }

    ...
    // unconcerned code above
}

So the keyword is Linkify now. For addLinks:

public static final boolean addLinks(@NonNull Spannable text, @LinkifyMask int mask) {
    ...

    if ((mask & PHONE_NUMBERS) != 0) {
        gatherTelLinks(links, text);
    }

    ...
}

private static final void gatherTelLinks(ArrayList<LinkSpec> links, Spannable s) {
    PhoneNumberUtil phoneUtil = PhoneNumberUtil.getInstance();
    Iterable<PhoneNumberMatch> matches = phoneUtil.findNumbers(s.toString(),
            Locale.getDefault().getCountry(), Leniency.POSSIBLE, Long.MAX_VALUE);
    for (PhoneNumberMatch match : matches) {
        LinkSpec spec = new LinkSpec();
        spec.url = "tel:" + PhoneNumberUtils.normalizeNumber(match.rawString());
        spec.start = match.start();
        spec.end = match.end();
        links.add(spec);
    }
}

Then, something bad happened, the SDK doesn't have PhoneNumberUtil, specifically these 3 classes below:

import com.android.i18n.phonenumbers.PhoneNumberMatch;
import com.android.i18n.phonenumbers.PhoneNumberUtil;
import com.android.i18n.phonenumbers.PhoneNumberUtil.Leniency;

For now, the first reason surfaced: Locale.getDefault().getCountry().
So I went to setting, found language, selected Chinese. The result is below:

• 12345 linked
• 123456 linked
• 1234567 linked
• 12345678 linked
• 123456789 linked
• 1234567890 linked
• 12345678901 linked
• 123456789012 linked

Secondly, for the package of com.android.i18n.phonenumbers, I found this:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/libphonenumber/+/ics-factoryrom-2-release/java/src/com/android/i18n/phonenumbers
If you are interested, check the link above. Notice in the URL: ics-factoryrom-2-release. So I highly doubt that this is platform-dependent.

For the solution, CleverAndroid is right, taking full control of LinkMovementMethod is a good option.

Just do the following

TextView userInput= (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.textView);

if(userInput != null){
     Linkify.addLinks(userInput, Patterns.PHONE,"tel:",Linkify.sPhoneNumberMatchFilter,Linkify.sPhoneNumberTransformFilter);
     userInput.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
}

and also remove the

android:autoLink

from your xml file

I made a universal pattern for phone numbers and added a Linkify mask. Kotlin, extension function:

fun TextView.makeLinkedable(){
    val pattern = Pattern.compile("""([\d|\(][\h|\(\d{3}\)|\.|\-|\d]{4,}\d)""",
    Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE)
    LinkifyCompat.addLinks(this, Linkify.ALL)
    LinkifyCompat.addLinks(this, pattern, "tel://", null, null, null)
    setLinkTextColor(ContextCompat.getColor(context, R.color.blue))
}

Should work for all devices

The point is in this:

val pattern = Pattern.compile("""([\d|\(][\h|\(\d{3}\)|\.|\-|\d]{4,}\d)""",
Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE)
LinkifyCompat.addLinks(this, pattern, "tel://", null, null, null)

And in Java:

 Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("([\\d|(][\\h|(\\d{3})|.|\\-|\\d]{4,}\\d{4,})", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
 LinkifyCompat.addLinks(textView, pattern, "tel://", null, null, null);