String in Java

String is one of the most widely used data type by java programmers. Things that we normally use in conversations like "hello", "refresh java", "Hello world", "It's easy to learn java", name of a person, address of a person etc are some of the examples of string in java.

In java a string is basically a sequence of characters, for example the string "hello" is a sequence of characters 'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o'. Similarly each string in java is a sequence of characters. Java language provides String class to create and manipulate strings in your programs. This class is defined in java.lang package which comes automatically in your java software(JDK or JRE).

Since a class in java acts as a non primitive data type, so String is also a non primitive data type. You can use String class as a data type to store string values. The Syntax of declaring a string is :

 String var_name = "refresh java";
 String var_name = new String("Hello World");

Here String is the data type, var_name is the name of variable which is given as per the programmers choice and the value of string variable is given inside "". You need to use the double quotes("") to create string values in java.

String class program in Java

 class	StringDemo
  {
    public static void main(String args[]) 
      {
         // Creating String variables
         String strVar = "refresh java";
         String strVar2 = new String("Hello World");
         char[] charArray = {'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o'};
         String strVar3 = new String(charArray); 
         String strVar4 = strVar;
         // Printing the values of String variables
         System.out.println("strVar = "+strVar);
         System.out.println("strVar2 = "+strVar2);
         System.out.println("strVar3 = "+strVar3);
         System.out.println("strVar4 = "+strVar4);
      }
  }			 

Output:

Java string memory allocation

String values in java are stored inside a special memory known as string pool or string constant pool which exist inside the heap memory. This memory is used to allocate space for string values only. String values given inside "" in your program are created inside string pool. To understand memory allocation of strings, let's consider we have following string variables declared inside a program.

 1. String s1 = "refresh java";
 2. String s2 = new String("Hello World");
 3. String s3 = new String("hello");
 4. String s4 = "refresh java";
 5. String s5 = "hello";

Let's understand how java assigns memory for above strings variables.

• Line 1, java checks if string literal "refresh java" is already in string pool or not, since it's not there, java creates this string literal in string pool and assigns the reference(address) of this in s1.
• Line 2 is creating object s2 using new keyword, so java will create it inside the heap memory with value as "Hello World" and it will also create the string literal("Hello World") inside the string pool as well.
• Line 3 is also creating object s3 using new keyword, so it will also be created inside the heap memory with value as "hello" and the same string literal("hello") would also be created inside string pool.
• Line 4, java again checks the string literal "refresh java" inside the string pool, since it's already there in pool, so it won't create it again. Java assigns the reference of existing string literal in s4.
• Line 5, java again checks the string literal "hello" inside string pool, since it's already there in pool, so it won't create it again. Java assigns the reference of existing string literal in s5.

String concatenation in java

This is also used very often by java programmers. String concatenation is a way of concating(adding) two or more string values. Java provides the feature of adding two or more string variable or values using plus(+) operator. For example you can add two string values "refresh" and "java" as "refresh"+"Java" which results as a new string "refreshJava". Java also provides the concat method in String class to concat two string variables or values. You can refer next tutorial about this method.

Java program to concatenate two string

 class	StringConcatDemo 
  {
   public static void main(String args[]) 
     {
       String s1 = "refresh";
       String s2 = "Java";
       s1 = s1+s2;
       s2 = "refresh" + s2 + " tutorial";            
       System.out.println("s1 = "+s1);
       System.out.println("s2 = "+s2);
     }
  }			 

Output:

String is immutable in Java.

Immutable simply means something that is not changeable, once a string value in java is created, you can not change that value. For example in above program the code s1+s2 will create a new string "refreshJava" and assigns the reference of this in s1 but the original string "refresh" will still be there in string pool memory, that is why string in java is immutable.