The Significance of Strings in Java
Summary
Java is a widely used programming language known for its open-source nature, making it popular among developers. Strings are crucial in Java and are frequently used. They are backed by a character array, and the String pool stores them in a separate memory location. Strings are immutable, meaning they cannot be modified, and comparison is done using the "equals" method. Java supports operator overloading for string concatenation using the "+" operator. The "trim" method removes white spaces, and "substring" retrieves part of a string. Java programmers must have a good understanding of the String class to use it effectively.
Table of Content
Java is a programming language that was first released by Sun Microsystems in the year 1995. Most of the websites and application that we come across over the internet in our day to day life is developed using Java programming language. There are other programming languages available in the market, but Java is most widely used by developers, as it is an open-source language, which means that it does not come with a price tag as it can be used by the developers for free of cost. Maybe this is one of the reasons that it is most preferred programming language by the developers in comparison to other programming languages available in the market. As many other languages, Java programs are developed using its own run-time environment, which is universally known as Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Within JRE, you have something called Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which has Java platform core classes and Java platform libraries. JRE provides a runtime portion that enables the application to run in the web browser.
Importance of string in Java Programming Language
Strings are very crucial in Java and also are very frequently used by Java programmers. It is important that the Java developers have a good knowledge about String class, in order to use them effectively. In this article, we will be focusing on some of the important topics about Java String.
1. Strings do not use any null character for termination
The String does not use any null character for termination. On the contrary, strings and objects are backed by character array. Programmers can use the character array to represent a String in Java programming language. They can do this by using toCharArray() method of java.lang.String class of JDK.
2. Strings are not modifiable
One thing Java programmers must be aware of is that String is not immutable, which means that once the programmer creates a string it cannot be modified. If the programmer tries to modify the content of the string, then it will create a new String. In other words, Strings does not allow inclusions of new content into the existing String and they also cannot override the functionality of a String.
3. Strings are placed in the String Pool
Strings are maintained in a separate String pool. String pool is a special memory location available inside Java memory.
Whenever a programmer creates a String object using String literal, Java Virtual Machine first checks String pool and if JVM finds any similar content available in the String pool then it will return that string and does not create a new object. Java Virtual Machine does not check String pool if the programmer creates an object using the new operator.
4. Comparison of Strings is done using equals method
For comparing two Strings, String class uses equals() method instead of equality operator. String class overrides the equal method and offers content equality which basically uses characters, case, and order.
5. Retrieving part of String in Java
For retrieving only some part of data in the String, Java programmers can use a method called substring(). The Java programmers have to specify start and end index and this
method returns character from the specified range. Substring() methods are also backed by character arrays, that is used by original string. Sometimes this method can be risky, if the String object is very vast and the substring is very small
6. Strings Supports Operator Overloading
Though, java programming language does not support operator overloading concept, special programmers can use operator overloading method. Java programmers can make use of “+” operator for concatenating two Strings. Programmers have the flexibility to convert int, char, long or double to convert into String by simply concatenating with an empty string "".
7. Removing White Spaces
To remove additional spaces within the String Java programmers can make use of trim(), that eliminates white spaces from both ends of the string. If there are any white spaces present within the string, trim() method returns new string after removing white spaces .If there are no white spaces present within the string, then, trim() method would will return same string. Java programmers can also make use of replace() and ReplaceAll() method for replacing characters.
Conclusion
Strings are very special in Java, the content within the string cannot be changed or overridden after creation. Strings support many other functionalities, and programmers can use them according to their project requirement.
