Related to this issue: #30585

This is still a bug, selectTextOnFocus does not work for me either on iOS as expected (I'm on react-native 0.72.6).

A working temporary solution is found here: #30585 (comment) (thanks @pascallapointe)

<TextInput
  value={value}
  onFocus={e => 
       // Workaround for selectTextOnFocus={true} not working
       e.currentTarget.setNativeProps({
           selection: { start: 0, end: value?.toString().length },
       });
  }
  ...
/>

Setting multiline to true also works, but this does not fit my use-case since then returnKeyType='done' enters a new line instead of toggling the keyboard.

I'm also having this issue and it seems to work intermittently in no predictable way

Happening for me too.

Happening to me too. I managed to fix it by also including the selection prop, seems they are linked in some way, while not being explained in the documentation?

Happening to me too. I managed to fix it by also including the selection prop, seems they are linked in some way, while not being explained in the documentation?

This option works, but is not very good from a UX point of view, because the text will be highlighted every time (also when editing).

My temporal suggestion it's using ref for set selection on focus.

const ref = useRef(null)
const [value, setValue] = useState('');

const onFocus = () => {
 input.current?.setSelection(0, value.length);
}

return <TextInput value={value} onChangeText={setValue} ref={ref} onFocus={onFocus} />

I'm hitting this too. I think it's a bug. Does anyone have a burning desire to dig into the source code and figure out what's going on?

I briefly investigated this and seem to have found the cause of the problem and a potential fix. Opened a PR here. Hopefully if it isn't the right fix it at least points in the right direction for someone to pick it up (especially since it also affects Fabric!) #44307

Right now, the underlying native code selects the text like so in non-fabric:

- (void)textInputDidBeginEditing
{
  // Removed some other code for clarity

  if (_selectTextOnFocus) {
    [self.backedTextInputView selectAll:nil];
  }

  [_eventDispatcher sendTextEventWithType:RCTTextEventTypeFocus
                                 reactTag:self.reactTag
                                     text:[self.backedTextInputView.attributedText.string copy]
                                      key:nil
                               eventCount:_nativeEventCount];
}

This seems logical at first glance, and it actually is highlighting the text. Notice that we briefly sometimes see the selection before losing it.

A bit more investigation reveals that the method reactFocus is later called, always after textInputDidBeginEditing. Whenever reactFocus gets called, we lose the selection. If we move the selectAll call to after reactFocus, then we consistently see the expected behavior.

Hopefully if this isn't the appropriate fix it at least gives someone the right idea of where to go looking.