Java String Manipulation

What are Strings?

• A string in literal terms is a series of characters. In technical terms, the
basic Java String is basically an array of characters.
Why use Strings?
• One of the primary functions of modern computer science, is
processing human language.
• Similarly to how numbers are important to math, language symbols
are important to meaning and decision making. Although it may not
be visible to computer users, computers process language in the
background as precisely and accurately as a calculator. Help dialogs
provide instructions. Menus provide choices. And data displays show
statuses, errors, and real-time changes to the language.
• As a Java programmer, one of your main tools for storing and
processing language is going to be the String class.
String Syntax Examples
//String is an array of characters
char[] arrSample = {'R', 'O', 'S', 'E'};
String strSample_1 = new String (arrSample);

We always cannot write our strings as arrays; hence we can define the
String in Java as follows:

//Representation of String
String strSample_2 = "ROSE";
String Concatenation:
Concatenation is joining of two or more strings.

//String Concatenation
String str1 = "Rock";
String str2 = "Star";

//Method 1 : Using concat

String str3 = str1.concat(str2);
System.out.println(str3);
//Method 2 : Using "+" operator
String str4 = str1 + str2;
System.out.println(str4);
String "Length" Method
• Methods used to obtain information about an object are known as
accessor methods. One accessor method that you can use with strings
is the length() method, which returns the number of characters
contained in the string object.

String str_Sample = "RockStar";

//Length of a String
System.out.println("Length of String: " + str_Sample.length());
String "indexOf" Method
• This method returns the index within this string of the first occurrence
of the specified character or -1, if the character does not occur

String str_Sample = "RockStar";

System.out.println("Index of character 'S': " + str_Sample.indexOf('S’));
String "charAt" Method
• This method returns the character located at the String's specified
index. The string indexes start from zero.

String str_Sample = "RockStar";

System.out.println("Character at position 5: " + str_Sample.charAt(5));
String "CompareTo" Method
• This method compares two strings lexicographically.

String str1 = "Strings are immutable";

String str2 = new String("Strings are immutable");

int result = str1.compareTo( str2 );

System.out.println(result);
String "Contain" Method
• Specify the characters you need to check.

String str_Sample = "RockStar";

System.out.println("str_Sample.contains("tar"));
String "endsWith" Method
• This method tests if this string ends with the specified suffix.

String Str = new String("This is really not immutable!!");

boolean retVal;

retVal = Str.endsWith( "immutable!!" );

System.out.println("Returned Value = " + retVal );

retVal = Str.endsWith( "immu" );

System.out.println("Returned Value = " + retVal );
String "replace" Method
• This method returns a new string resulting from replacing all
occurrences of oldChar in this string with newChar.

String str_Sample = "RockStar";

System.out.println(str_Sample.replace("Rock", "Duke"));
String "toUpperCase" Method
• This method has two variants. The first variant converts all of the
characters in this String to upper case using the rules of the given
Locale. This is equivalent to calling toUpperCase(Locale.getDefault()).

String str_Sample = "RockStar";

//Convert to UpperCase
System.out.println(str_Sample.toUpperCase());
String “toLowerCase" Method
• This method has two variants. The first variant converts all of the
characters in this String to lower case using the rules of the given
Locale. This is equivalent to calling toLowerCase(Locale.getDefault()).

• The second variant takes locale as an argument to be used while

converting into lower case.

String str_Sample = "RockStar";

System.out.println(str_Sample.toLowerCase());
Seat Work
1. What is the output of the following code?
2. What is the output of the following code?
3. What is the output of the following code?
4. What is the output of the following code?
5. What is the output of the following code?