Java String

In Java, string is basically an object that represents sequence of char values. In java, objects of String are immutable which means a constant and cannot be changed once created.

The java.lang.String class is used to create a string object.

There are two ways to create String object:

1. By string literal

Java String literal is created by using double quotes.

String s="welcome";  

To make Java more memory efficient String literals are used (because no new objects are created if it exists already in the string constant pool).

2. By new keyword

String s=new String("welcome");

In this case, JVM will create a new string object in normal (non-pool) heap memory, and the literal "Welcome" will be placed in the string constant pool. The variable s will refer to the object in a heap (non-pool).

Example:

public class StringEx{   

public static void main(String args[]){   

String s1="java";

char ch[]={'s','t','r','i','n','g','s'};   

String s2=new String(ch); //converting char array to string   

String s3=new String("example"); //creating Java string by new keyword   

System.out.println(s1);   

System.out.println(s2);   

System.out.println(s3);   

}}   

The java.lang.String class provides many useful methods to perform operations on sequence of char values.

Method	Description	Return Type
charAt()	Returns the character at the specified index (position)	char
codePointAt()	Returns the Unicode of the character at the specified index	int
codePointBefore()	Returns the Unicode of the character before the specified index	int
codePointCount()	Returns the Unicode in the specified text range of this String	int
compareTo()	Compares two strings lexicographically	int
compareToIgnoreCase()	Compares two strings lexicographically, ignoring case differences	int
concat()	Appends a string to the end of another string	String
contains()	Checks whether a string contains a sequence of characters	boolean
contentEquals()	Checks whether a string contains the exact same sequence of characters of the specified CharSequence or StringBuffer	boolean
copyValueOf()	Returns a String that represents the characters of the character array	String
endsWith()	Checks whether a string ends with the specified character(s)	boolean
equals()	Compares two strings. Returns true if the strings are equal, and false if not	boolean
equalsIgnoreCase()	Compares two strings, ignoring case considerations	boolean
format()	Returns a formatted string using the specified locale, format string, and arguments	String
getBytes()	Encodes this String into a sequence of bytes using the named charset, storing the result into a new byte array	byte[]
getChars()	Copies characters from a string to an array of chars	void
hashCode()	Returns the hash code of a string	int
indexOf()	Returns the position of the first found occurrence of specified characters in a string	int
intern()	Returns the canonical representation for the string object	String
isEmpty()	Checks whether a string is empty or not	boolean
lastIndexOf()	Returns the position of the last found occurrence of specified characters in a string	int
length()	Returns the length of a specified string	int
matches()	Searches a string for a match against a regular expression, and returns the matches	boolean
offsetByCodePoints()	Returns the index within this String that is offset from the given index by codePointOffset code points	int
regionMatches()	Tests if two string regions are equal	boolean
replace()	Searches a string for a specified value, and returns a new string where the specified values are replaced	String
replaceFirst()	Replaces the first occurrence of a substring that matches the given regular expression with the given replacement	String
replaceAll()	Replaces each substring of this string that matches the given regular expression with the given replacement	String
split()	Splits a string into an array of substrings	String[]
startsWith()	Checks whether a string starts with specified characters	boolean
subSequence()	Returns a new character sequence that is a subsequence of this sequence	CharSequence
substring()	Returns a new string which is the substring of a specified string	String
toCharArray()	Converts this string to a new character array	char[]
toLowerCase()	Converts a string to lower case letters	String
toString()	Returns the value of a String object	String
toUpperCase()	Converts a string to upper case letters	String
trim()	Removes whitespace from both ends of a string	String
valueOf()	Returns the string representation of the specified value	String