String Processing

Lecture 14

CS106A, Summer 2019

Sarai Gould && Laura Cruz-Albrecht
With inspiration from slides created by Keith Schwarz, Mehran Sahami, Eric Roberts, Stuart Reges, Chris Piech and others.
 Announcements
● Assignment 3 due tomorrow at 10AM
● Midterm: check out website page
○ download Bluebook, be sure to have 2 factor authentication with
passcodes; see yesterday’s lecture for helpful links.
○ Midterm conflicts: was due last night, if for some reason you
haven’t done it, please do so now:
http://bit.ly/CS106AMidtermConflicts
● Midterm review session: Friday 10:30AM in Gates B01
● Reminder: schedule has code + suggested readings
○ For today, blank code has been posted so you can code along in
lecture if you would like
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 Learning Goals Today
● Be able to write string algorithms that operate on each
character.
● Be able to build up new strings from existing strings using
built-in String methods.

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 Plan for Today

● Review: Characters and Strings

● Looping over Strings
● Practice: Reversing a String
● Practice: Palindromes
● Practice: Caesar Cipher

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 Plan for Today

● Review: Characters and Strings

● Looping over Strings
● Practice: Reversing a String
● Practice: Palindromes
● Practice: Caesar Cipher

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Text Processing

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 Characters
A char is a variable type that represents a single character or “glyph”.

Single quotes!

char letterA = 'A';

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An Aside

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 Char
Under the hood, Java represents each char as an integer.
This integer is its “ASCII” value.

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 Char
Under the hood, Java represents each char as an integer.
This integer is its “ASCII” value.

char uppercaseA = 'A'; // Actually 65

char lowercaseA = 'a'; // Actually 97
char zeroDigit = '0'; // Actually 48

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 Char
Under the hood, Java represents each char as an integer.
This integer is its “ASCII” value.

char uppercaseA = 'A'; // Actually 65

char lowercaseA = 'a'; // Actually 97
char zeroDigit = '0'; // Actually 48

● Uppercase letters ('A' -> 'Z') are sequentially numbered

● Lowercase letters ('a' -> 'z') are sequentially numbered
● Digits ('0' -> '9') are sequentially numbered
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 Char Math
We can take advantage of Java representing each char as
an integer (its “ASCII” value).

boolean areEqual = 'A' == 'A'; // true

boolean earlierLetter = 'f' < 'c'; // false
char uppercaseB = 'A' + 1; // 'B'
int diff = 'c' - 'a'; // 2

int alphabetSize = 'z' – 'a' + 1;

// or
int alphabetSize = 'Z' – 'A' + 1;
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 Type-Casting
If we want to force Java to treat an expression as a particular
type, we can also cast it to that type.

'A' + 1 // evaluates to 66 (int)

(char)('A' + 1) // evaluates to 'B' (char)

1 / 2 // evaluates to 0 (int)
(double)1 / 2 // evaluates to 0.5 (double)
1 / (double)2 // evaluates to 0.5 (double)

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Character Methods

Remember: these
return a new char,
they cannot modify
an existing char.

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 Strings
Text is stored using the variable type String.
A String is a sequence of characters!
Double quotes!

String text = “Hello!”;

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 Strings
● Each character is assigned an index, going from 0 to length-1.
● There is a char at each index.

H e l l o !
0 1 2 3 4 5

int strLen = text.length(); // 6

char last = text.charAt(strLen - 1); // ‘!’
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 Strings vs. Chars

Remember: chars and length-1 Strings are different!

char ch = 'A' DIFFERENT FROM String str = “A”

'A' + 1 // evaluates to 66 (int)

“A” + 1 // evaluates to “A1” (String)

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 Creating Strings
String str = "Hello, world!";
String empty = "";

// Read in text from the user

String name = readLine("What is your name? ");

// String concatenation (using “+”)

String message = name + " is " + 2 + " cool.";

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 From Chars to Strings
char c1 = 'a';
char c2 = 'b';

// How do we concatenate these characters?

String str = c1 + c2; // ERROR: this is an int!

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 From Chars to Strings
char c1 = 'a';
char c2 = 'b';

// How do we concatenate these characters?

String str = c1 + c2; // ERROR: this is an int!

String str = "" + c1 + c2; // ✔

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 Substrings
A substring is a subset of a string.

String str = “Hi Duke!”;

String hi = str.substring(0, 2);

'H' 'i' ' ' 'D' 'u' 'k' 'e' '!'

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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 Substrings
A substring is a subset of a string.

String str = “Hi Duke!”;

String dukeExclm = str.substring(3); // to end

'H' 'i' ' ' 'D' 'u' 'k' 'e' '!'

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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 Useful String Methods

* remember, called using dot notation: myString.length() 23

 Strings are Immutable
● Java strings are immutable: once you create a String, its
contents cannot be changed.
● To change a String, you must create a new String containing
the value you want (e.g. using String methods).

String typo = "Hello, warld!”;

typo.charAt(8) = ‘o’; // Error! Will not run.

String corrected = typo.substring(0, 8) +

‘o’ + typo.substring(9);
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 Comparing Strings

Always use .equals() instead of == and !=

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 Plan for Today

● Review: Characters and Strings

● Looping over Strings
● Practice: Reversing a String
● Practice: Palindromes
● Practice: Caesar Cipher

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 Looping over Strings
A common String programming pattern is looping over a
String and operating on each character.

for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {

char ch = str.charAt(i);
// do something with ch here
}

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 Looping over Strings
A common String programming pattern is looping over a
String and operating on each character.

// prints out each letter on a separate line

for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
char ch = str.charAt(i);
println(ch);
}

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 Looping over Strings
Another common String programming pattern is building up a
new string by adding characters to it over time.

// Creates a new String in all caps

String str = "Hello!";
String newStr = "";
for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
char ch = str.charAt(i);
newStr = newStr + Character.toUpperCase(ch);
}
println(newStr); // HELLO!
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 Looping over Strings
Another common String programming pattern is building up a
new string by adding characters to it over time.

// Creates a new String in all caps

String str = "Hello!";
String newStr = "";
for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
char ch = str.charAt(i);
newStr += Character.toUpperCase(ch);
}
println(newStr); // HELLO!
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 Looping over Strings
Another common String programming pattern is building up a
new string by adding characters to it over time.

// Creates a new String containing digits 0 through 4

String str = "";
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
str += i;
}
println(str); // 01234

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 Plan for Today

● Review: Characters and Strings

● Looping over Strings
● Practice: Reversing a String
● Practice: Palindromes
● Practice: Caesar Cipher

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 Exercise: Reversing a String
Let’s write a method called reverseString that takes one
String parameter, and returns a new String with the
characters in the opposite order.

reverseString("Hello!") -> "!olleH"

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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !

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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !

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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
!
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
!
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l l
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l l
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l l e
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l l e
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l l e H
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l l e H
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Another Take

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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !

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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
H
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
e H
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
l e H
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
l l e H
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
o l l e H
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 Reversing a String

H e l l o !
! o l l e H
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 Plan for Today

● Review: Characters and Strings

● Looping over Strings
● Practice: Reversing a String
● Practice: Palindromes
● Practice: Caesar Cipher

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 Exercise: Palindromes
Let’s write a method called isPalindrome that takes one
String parameter, and returns whether or not that String is a
palindrome (the same forwards and backwards)

isPalindrome("racecar") -> true

isPalindrome("hi there") -> false
isPalindrome("kayak") -> true
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Let’s Code It!

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 More Palindromes

Here are some palindromes in other languages:

● ‫( ب ﻗﻠﻌﺔ ﺗﺣت ﺗﻌﻠق ﺑﻠﺢ‬Dates hang underneath a castle in Halab)

● 여보 , 안경 안보여 (Honey, I can't see my glasses)
● कड़क (a loud thunderous sound)
● 上海自來水來自海上 (Shanghai tap water originates from "above"
the ocean)

Do you know a palindrome in another language?

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 Stress Test
A man, a plan, a caret, a ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop, a pint, a catalpa, a gas, an oil, a bird, a
yell, a vat, a caw, a pax, a wag, a tax, a nay, a ram, a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a car, a luger, a ward,
a bin, a woman, a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit, a pall, a fret, a watt, a bay, a daub, a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall,
a hat, a tag, a zap, a say, a jaw, a lay, a wet, a gallop, a tug, a trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a caper, a top, a tonk,
a toll, a ball, a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a bass, a passer, a capital, a rut, an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a
sun, an ass, a maw, a sag, a jam, a dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a wadi, a radian, a room, a rood, a
rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a reed, a pool, a plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, a pat, a cud, a nu, a
fan, a pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a nap, a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a
gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel, a total, a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola, a pap, a yaw, a
tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a bat, a way, a papa, a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a
gap, a tar, a decal, a tot, a led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a keel, a doom, a mix, a map, an atom, a
gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a ten, a don, a mural, a pan, a faun, a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a keep, a
nip, a gulp, a loop, a deer, a leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a tapir, a door, a moor, an aid, a raid, a wad, an alias,
an ox, an atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw, a mass, an anus, a gnat, a lab, a cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a
caress, a pass, a baronet, a minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot, a rep, a carrot, a mart, a part, a tort, a
gut, a poll, a gateway, a law, a jay, a sap, a zag, a tat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day, a batt, a
waterfall, a patina, a nut, a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib, a draw, a regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a
yap, a cam, a ray, an ax, a tag, a wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a plat, a catnip, a pooh, a
rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a canal – Panama!
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 Plan for Today

● Review: Characters and Strings

● Looping over Strings
● Practice: Reversing a String
● Practice: Palindromes
● Practice: Caesar Cipher

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 Exercise: Caesar Cipher
Let’s write a program that encrypts text using a Caesar
Cipher! In a Caesar Cipher:

● Rotate text by n letters → this is the key (n=3 below)

● Wrap-around at the end
● Substitute letters based on this mapping

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 Exercise: Caesar Cipher
● rotate the alphabet by a certain key, with wrapping.

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Let’s Code It!

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Extra Practice: Recall Char Loops

// prints the characters a to z

for (char ch = 'a'; ch <= 'z'; ch++) {
println(ch);
}

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 Extra Practice: Passcodes
● So, Duke forgot his password
● It’s 3 characters long
● Each character is between a and e ?

● How can we use char loops to generate

all possible passwords for Duke to try?

aaa
aab
aac
…
eed
eee

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 Plan for Today

● Review: Characters and Strings

● Looping over Strings
● Practice: Reversing a String
● Practice: Palindromes
● Practice: Caesar Cipher

Next Time: How can we read data from a file?

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