Strings

Strings

• As you may have noticed, in Java, there is no variable type called string. However, although Java does not have a built-in string type, it does provide you will a predefined class called String which you can use instead.¹

• We'll talk more about classes and using them in later sections. However, it would be nice to at least introduce the String class here so we can use it in the meantime.

• To instantiate a String, you simply use the same syntax that you would if it were a type:

  String s = "Hello Cyberspace";
  

• Strings have quite a few methods which allow you to manipulate them in every way that you could in Perl. To read about these methods, simply use the online documentation. We will talk about how to efficiently use the online documentation a little bit later but you should know that you can find the String class in the java.lang package.

1. Strings are immutable, once a String object is created it can not be changed. A StringBuffer object should be used to enable modification of a sequence of characters.

Additional Resources:

• Learning to Write Java
• Introducing Java (TM) - Your First Applet
• Java FAQs
• Java Software
• java.sun.com
• Sun Microsystems

Variables
Table of Contents
Arrays