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17.2: Strings Are Immutable

  • Page ID
    15264
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    Strings provide methods, toUpperCase and toLowerCase, that convert from uppercase to lowercase and back. These methods are often a source of confusion, because it sounds like they modify strings. But neither these methods nor any others can change a string, because strings are immutable.

    When you invoke toUpperCase on a string, you get a new string object as a return value. For example:

    String name = "Alan Turing";
    String upperName = name.toUpperCase();
    

    After these statements run, upperName refers to the string "ALAN TURING". But name still refers to "Alan Turing".

    Another useful method is replace, which finds and replaces instances of one string within another. This example replaces "Computer Science" with "CS":

    String text = "Computer Science is fun!";
    text = text.replace("Computer Science", "CS");
    

    This example demonstrates a common way to work with string methods. It invokes text.replace, which returns a reference to a new string, "CS is fun!". Then it assigns the new string to text, replacing the old string.

    This assignment is important; if you don’t save the return value, invoking text.replace has no effect.


    This page titled 17.2: Strings Are Immutable is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Allen B. Downey (Green Tea Press) .

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