Difference between "char" and "String" in Java

java string char
Android Girl picture Android Girl · May 3, 2012 · Viewed 274.2k times · Source

I am reading a book for Java that I am trying to learn, and I have a question. I can't understand what is the difference between the variable type char and String. For example, there is a difference between int and short, the bytes at the memory and the area of numbers that they have.

But what is the difference between char and String? except that char use (') and "String" (").

PS: It is my first "real" programming language. (At school I learned a fake-language for the purpose of the programming lesson.)

Answer

Marquis of Lorne picture Marquis of Lorne · May 3, 2012

char is one character. String is zero or more characters.

char is a primitive type. String is a class.

char c = 'a';
String s = "Hi!";

Note the single quotes for char, and double quotes for String.

Related questions

How to convert a char to a String?

I have a char and I need a String. How do I convert from one to the other?

Read More
How to convert/parse from String to char in java?

How do I parse a String value to a char type, in Java? I know how to do it to int and double (for example Integer.parseInt("123")). Is there a class for Strings and Chars?

Read More
How to convert a char array back to a string?

I have a char array: char[] a = {'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', ' ', 'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd'}; My current solution is to do String b = new String(a); But surely there is a better way of doing this?

Read More