Java String Class

Strings in java

Java String Class is immutable, i.e. Strings in java, once created and initialized, cannot be changed on the same reference. A java.lang.String class is final which implies no class and extend it. The java.lang.String class differs from other classes, one difference being that the String objects can be used with the += and + operators for concatenation.

Two useful methods for String objects are equals( ) and substring( ). The equals( ) method is used for testing whether two Strings contain the same value. The substring( ) method is used to obtain a selected portion of a String.

Java.lang.String class creation

A simple String can be created using a string literal enclosed inside double quotes as shown;

String str1 = “My name is bob”;

Since a string literal is a reference, it can be manipulated like any other String reference. The reference value of a string literal can be assigned to another String reference.

If 2 or more Strings have the same set of characters in the same sequence then they share the same reference in memory. Below illustrates this phenomenon.

String str1 = “My name is bob”;
String str2 = “My name is bob”;
String str3 = “My name ”+ “is bob”; //Compile time expression
String name = “bob”;
String str4 = “My name is” + name;
String str5 = new String(“My name is bob”);

In the above code all the String references str1, str2 and str3 denote the same String object, initialized with the character string: “My name is bob”. But the Strings str4 and str5 denote new String objects.

Constructing String objects can also be done from arrays of bytes, arrays of characters, or string buffers. A simple way to convert any primitive value to its string representation is by concatenating it with the empty string (“”), using the string concatenation operator (+).

public class StringsDemo {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

    	byte[] bytes = {2, 4, 6, 8};

    	char[] characters = {'a', 'b', 'C', 'D'};

    	StringBuffer strBuffer = new StringBuffer("abcde");

//    	Examples of Creation of Strings

    	String byteStr = new String(bytes);      

    	String charStr = new String(characters); 

    	String buffStr = new String(strBuffer);

    	System.out.println("byteStr : "+byteStr);

    	System.out.println("charStr : "+charStr);

    	System.out.println("buffStr : "+buffStr);

    }

}

Download StringDemo1.java

Output

byteStr : 
charStr : abCD
buffStr : abcde

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