In this post, I show you how to use JRadioButton class to create a Radio button in Swing-based application.

Check out complete Swing tutorial at https://www.javaguides.net/p/java-swing-tutorial.html.

JRadioButton allows the user to select a single exclusive choice from a group of options. It is used with the ButtonGroup component.

Java Swing Radio Button Example

The example has three radio buttons; the value of the selected radio button is shown in a status bar.

package net.sourcecodeexamples.swingexample.components2;

import javax.swing.ButtonGroup;
import javax.swing.GroupLayout;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JRadioButton;
import javax.swing.LayoutStyle;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.event.ItemEvent;
import java.awt.event.ItemListener;

import static javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED;

public class RadioButtonExample extends JFrame
implements ItemListener {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private JLabel sbar;

    private void initializeUI() {

        JLabel lbl = new JLabel("Difficulty");

        ButtonGroup group = new ButtonGroup();

        JRadioButton rb1 = new JRadioButton("Easy", true);
        JRadioButton rb2 = new JRadioButton("Medium");
        JRadioButton rb3 = new JRadioButton("Hard");

        group.add(rb1);
        group.add(rb2);
        group.add(rb3);

        sbar = new JLabel("Selected: Easy");

        rb1.addItemListener(this);
        rb2.addItemListener(this);
        rb3.addItemListener(this);

        createLayout(lbl, rb1, rb2, rb3, sbar);

        setSize(350, 250);
        setTitle("Radio buttons");
        setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    }

    @Override
    public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent e) {

        int sel = e.getStateChange();

        if (sel == ItemEvent.SELECTED) {

            JRadioButton button = (JRadioButton) e.getSource();
            String text = button.getText();

            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("Selected: ");
            sb.append(text);

            sbar.setText(sb.toString());
        }
    }

    private void createLayout(JComponent...arg) {

        JPanel pane = (JPanel) getContentPane();
        GroupLayout gl = new GroupLayout(pane);
        pane.setLayout(gl);

        gl.setAutoCreateContainerGaps(true);

        gl.setHorizontalGroup(gl.createParallelGroup()
            .addComponent(arg[0])
            .addComponent(arg[1])
            .addComponent(arg[2])
            .addComponent(arg[3])
            .addComponent(arg[4])
        );

        gl.setVerticalGroup(gl.createSequentialGroup()
            .addComponent(arg[0])
            .addPreferredGap(LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.UNRELATED)
            .addComponent(arg[1])
            .addComponent(arg[2])
            .addComponent(arg[3])
            .addPreferredGap(RELATED,
                GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, Short.MAX_VALUE)
            .addComponent(arg[4])
        );
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        EventQueue.invokeLater(() -> {
            RadioButtonExample radioButtonExample = new RadioButtonExample();
            radioButtonExample.initializeUI();
            radioButtonExample.setVisible(true);
        });
    }
}

Let's understand the above program.

We created three JRadioButtons and placed into the ButtonGroup. The first radio button is preselected.

        ButtonGroup group = new ButtonGroup();

        JRadioButton rb1 = new JRadioButton("Easy", true);
        JRadioButton rb2 = new JRadioButton("Medium");
        JRadioButton rb3 = new JRadioButton("Hard");

        group.add(rb1);
        group.add(rb2);
        group.add(rb3);

All three radio buttons share one ItemListener:

rb1.addItemListener(this);
rb2.addItemListener(this);
rb3.addItemListener(this);

When we select a radio button, two events are actually triggered: one for selection and one for deselection. We are interested in the selection.

if (sel == ItemEvent.SELECTED) {
}

We get the source of the event with the getSource() method and get the text label of the radio button:

JRadioButton button = (JRadioButton) e.getSource();
String text = button.getText();

We build the string and set it to the label:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("Selected: ");
sb.append(text);
sbar.setText(sb.toString());

Output

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