Java String type

Description

The String class represents character strings. A quoted string constant can be assigned to a String variable.

Literal

String literals in Java are specified by enclosing a sequence of characters between a pair of double quotes. In Java strings are actually object types.

Example

Declare String type variable.

public class Main{
   public static void main(String[] argv){
      String str = "this is a test from java2s.com"; 
      System.out.println(str);/*from  w  w  w . j av a2 s. com*/
    }
}

The output:

equals() vs ==

equals( ) method and the == operator perform two different operations. equals( ) method compares the characters inside a String object. The == operator compares two object references to see whether they refer to the same instance.

The following program shows the differences:

 
public class Main {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    String s1 = "demo2s.com";
    String s2 = new String(s1);
/*ww  w .  j  a va 2s .  co  m*/
    System.out.println(s1 + " equals " + s2 + " -> " + s1.equals(s2));
    System.out.println(s1 + " == " + s2 + " -> " + (s1 == s2));
  }
}

Here is the output of the preceding example: