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I would like to create an EditText which accepts only numbers, has a maximum of 4 numbers, and is never narrower than it would be if filled with 4 numbers (does not shrink when empty, or have to expand to accommodate 4 numbers, so it's fixed.)

The first 2 are accomplished with: android:inputType="number" and android:maxLength="4".

How can I set the minimum length?

A little hackish , but you can put your EditText inside a FrameLayout alongside with another TextView with text="0000" and visibility=invisible.

FrameLayout Should have width=wrap_content and your EditText will have width=match_parent .
That should make it the right width always.

The advantage of this is, it's 100% xml-side, no code involved.

<FrameLayout
 android:layout_width="wrap_content"
 android:layout_height="wrap_content">
<TextView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="0000"
    android:visibility="invisible" />
<EditText
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:inputType="number"
    android:maxLength="4" />
</FrameLayout>
                This actually works better than kcoppock's answer, because it results in a textview of the exact right side.  But, definitely hackish.
– ab11
                Nov 23, 2010 at 16:29
                I tried to do what Jean stated, but I couldn't for whatever reason. I ended up using hints.
– Quv
                Jun 30, 2012 at 13:27
                In the modern age of constraint layout, this little hack can actually work quite well for fixed width numeric edit texts. You just need to constrain your EditText to the invisible TextView and there's no need for a nested layout.
– Dave S
                Jun 18, 2018 at 18:03
In my situation, I needed the view to be 6 digits wide. android:ems made the field too wide (since the M-character is wider than a digit).
I ended up using a transparent hint which dictates the minimum width of the field. The example below is six digits wide.
<EditText
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:hint="000000"
        android:textColorHint="#00FFFFFF"
        android:maxLength="6"
        android:inputType="numberPassword" />
This solution is independent of font, letter spacing and other things which may vary. The textColorHint is a 0% opaque white color, so the hint should never be visible to the user.
. . . this should insure the tightest fit possibly allowed by the default android edittext style
For additional control with the padding on both left and right you can use
android:background="#ffffff"
android:paddingLeft="0dp"
android:paddingRight="0dp"
There is an incredibly easy way to do this programmatically.
myEditText.setLayoutParams(new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(200, 50));
This would set the width to 200 and the height to 50!!
Enjoy :)
                Then of course you would manually need to see what the width of four characters would be, but I still think this is a really smooth way of manually setting width and height of an EditText!
– wea
                Aug 9, 2013 at 11:44
The problem is, that an EditText widget can loss focus because of a lot of different actions like touching another sensitive view, menu button or (hard keyboard cursor control) and so on. The restiction of a maximum length or type of the input can be done during the tying process (accept the character if it passes the filter or the length is not exceeded). but focus lost can be occour every time - even the submission is not completed yet and the input to short -> therefore there is no build-in minimum length solution, because the application would block at this point the execution of another event or task.
At least you have to validate your input before going to the next step in your workflow.
I use android:layout_width="60dip" so agree with mike fratto.
The ems solution appears to be interesting as well.
You can set alignment other wise when you put character more than wditText width than It's increase width or EditText width.
Please set toLeftOf and toRightOf of the above view to manage this things. Only one solution
 <LinearLayout
        xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
        xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
        android:id="@+id/resetpage"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:padding="10dp"
        android:orientation="vertical">
         <EditText
            android:layout_marginTop="80dp"
            android:layout_width="350dp"
            android:layout_height="200dp"
            android:layout_gravity="center"
            android:textSize="20sp"
            android:gravity="top"
            android:background="@drawable/border"
 </LinearLayout>
write this code inside the linear layout or u can customize the constraints
of margin in the editText as per your layout and the background is
just for the border of the editText in the drawable folder.
**border.xml**-->just paste this file in the drawable folder 
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
        <shape android:shape="rectangle">
            <solid android:color="#D0D0D0"/>
            <corners android:radius="10dp" />
        </shape>
    </item>
        android:left="2dp"
        android:right="2dp"
        android:top="2dp"
        android:bottom="2dp">
        <shape android:shape="rectangle">
            <solid android:color="@color/browser_actions_bg_grey"/>
            <corners android:radius="2dp" />
        </shape>
    </item>
</layer-list>
        
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