Change the enterText method to move the caret to the end of the input text

The WidgetTester.enterText and TestTextInput.enterText methods now move the caret to the end of the input text.

The caret indicates the insertion point within the current text in an active input field. Typically, when a new character is entered, the caret stays immediately after it. In Flutter the caret position is represented by a collapsed selection. When the selection is invalid, usually the user won't be able to modify or add text until they change the selection to a valid value.

WidgetTester.enterText and TestTextInput.enterText are 2 methods used in tests to replace the content of the target text field. Prior to this change, WidgetTester.enterText and TestTextInput.enterText set the selection to an invalid range (-1, -1), indicating there's no selection or caret. This contradicts the typical behavior of an input field.

In addition to replacing the text with the supplied text, WidgetTester.enterText and TestTextInput.enterText now set the selection to TextSelection.collapsed(offset: text.length), instead of TextSelection.collapsed(offset: -1).

It should be very uncommon for tests to have to rely on the previous behavior of enterText, since usually the selection should not be invalid. Consider changing the expected values of your tests to adopt the enterText change.

Common test failures this change may introduce includes:

• Golden test failures:

  The caret appears at the end of the text, as opposed to before the text prior to the change.

• Different TextEditingValue.selection after calling enterText:

  The text field's TextEditingValue now has a collapsed selection with a non-negative offset, as opposed to TextSelection.collapsed(offset: -1) prior to the change. For instance, you may see expect(controller.value.selection.baseOffset, -1); failing after enterText calls.

If your tests have to rely on setting the selection to invalid, the previous behavior can be achieved usingupdateEditingValue:

Code before migration:

await testTextInput.enterText(text);

Code after migration:

await testTextInput.updateEditingValue(TextEditingValue(
  text: text,
));

Code before migration:

await tester.enterText(finder, text);

Code after migration:

await tester.showKeyboard(finder);
await tester.updateEditingValue(TextEditingValue(
  text: text,
));
await tester.idle();

Landed in version: 2.1.0-13.0.pre
In stable release: 2.5

API documentation:

• WidgetTester.enterText
• TestTextInput.enterText

Relevant issues:

• Issue 79494

Relevant PR:

• enterText to move the caret to the end