How To limit the number of characters in JTextField?

Read the section from the Swing tutorial on Implementing a DocumentFilter for a more current solution.

This solution will work an any Document, not just a PlainDocument.

This is a more current solution than the one accepted.

http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0198.html

import javax.swing.text.PlainDocument;
import javax.swing.text.AttributeSet;
import javax.swing.text.BadLocationException;

public class JTextFieldLimit extends PlainDocument {
  private int limit;

  JTextFieldLimit(int limit) {
   super();
   this.limit = limit;
   }

  public void insertString( int offset, String  str, AttributeSet attr ) throws BadLocationException {
    if (str == null) return;

    if ((getLength() + str.length()) <= limit) {
      super.insertString(offset, str, attr);
    }
  }
}

Then

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;

 public class DemoJTextFieldWithLimit extends JApplet{
   JTextField textfield1;
   JLabel label1;

   public void init() {
     getContentPane().setLayout(new FlowLayout());
     //
     label1 = new JLabel("max 10 chars");
     textfield1 = new JTextField(15);
     getContentPane().add(label1);
     getContentPane().add(textfield1);
     textfield1.setDocument
        (new JTextFieldLimit(10));
     }
}

(first result from google)

If you wanna have everything into one only piece of code, then you can mix tim's answer with the example's approach found on the API for JTextField, and you'll get something like this:

public class JTextFieldLimit extends JTextField {
    private int limit;

    public JTextFieldLimit(int limit) {
        super();
        this.limit = limit;
    }

    @Override
    protected Document createDefaultModel() {
        return new LimitDocument();
    }

    private class LimitDocument extends PlainDocument {

        @Override
        public void insertString( int offset, String  str, AttributeSet attr ) throws BadLocationException {
            if (str == null) return;

            if ((getLength() + str.length()) <= limit) {
                super.insertString(offset, str, attr);
            }
        }       

    }

}

Then there is no need to add a Document to the JTextFieldLimit due to JTextFieldLimit already have the functionality inside.