Converting an integer and a character to a string in java - java

I'm trying to create a string comprised of a single letter, followed by 4 digits e.g. b6789. I'm getting stuck when I try to convert a character, and integer to one String. I can't use toString() because I've overwritten it, and I assume that concatenation is not the best way to approach it? This was my solution, until I realised that valueof() only takes a single parameter. Any suggestions? FYI - I'm using Random, because I will be creating multiples at some point. The rest of my code seemed irrelevant, and hence has been omitted.
Random r = new Random();
Integer numbers = r.nextInt(9000) + 1000;
Character letter = (char)(r.nextInt(26) + 'a');
String strRep = String.valueOf(letter, numbers);

I think they mean for you not to use concatenation with + operator.
Rather than that, there's a class called StringBuilder which will do the trick for you. Just create an empty one, append anything you need on it (takes Objects or primitives as arguments and does all the work for you), and at the end, just call at its "toString()" method, and you'll have your concatenated String.
For example
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append("Foo");
sb.append(123);
return sb.toString();
would return the string Foo123

you can use:
Character.toString(char)
which is
String.valueOf(char)
in reality which also works.
or just use
String str = "" + 'a';
as already mentioned but not very efficient as it is
String str = new StringBuilder().append("").append('a').toString();
in reality.
same goes for integer + string or char + int to string. I think your simpliest way would be to use string concatenation

Looks like you want
String.valueOf(letter).concat(numbers.toString());

Related

How to replace some character in a string with a single character of type char?

As an example I have abcdbab and I want to replace all ab with A.
The output is AcdbA.
I try this one but it gives an error.
char N = 65;
String S = "abcdbab";
S = S.replaceAll("ab", N);
System.out.print(S);
Is there any method to do this?
Use String.replace(CharSequence,CharSequence) (remember String is immutable, so either use the result or assign it back) like
String str = "abcdbab";
System.out.println(str);
str = str.replace("ab", "A");
System.out.println(str);
Output is
abcdbab
AcdbA
Just change the following line:
char N = 65;
to
String N = "A";
and it'll work fine.
There is no such method String#replace(CharSequence, char), you will need to find the one that is closes to your needs and adjust to it, for example, there is a String#replaceAll(CharSequence, CharSequence) method and char can be represented as a CharSequence (or a String), for example...
S = S.replaceAll("ab", Character.toString(N));
You might like to have a read through Code Conventions for the Java TM Programming Language, it will make it easier for people to read your code and for you to read others
You can also change
S = S.replaceAll("ab", N);
to
S = S.replaceAll("ab", "" + N);
referencing here, http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/java_string_replaceall.htm replaceAll takes a String, String not String, Char

Character Concatenation Resulting in Numerical Output [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
In Java, is the result of the addition of two chars an int or a char?
(8 answers)
Closed 9 years ago.
In a programming language called Java, I have the following line of code:
char u = 'U';
System.out.print(u + 'X');
This statement results in an output like this:
173
Instead of
UX
Am I missing something? Why isn't it outputing 'UX'? Thank you.
Because you are performing an addition of chars. In Java, when you add chars, they are first converted to integers. In your case, the ASCII code of U is 85 and the code for X is 88.
And you print the sum, which is 173.
If you want to concatenate the chars, you can do, for example:
System.out.print("" + u + 'X');
Now the + is not a char addition any more, it becomes a String concatenation (because the first parameter "" is a String).
You could also create the String from its characters:
char[] characters = {u, 'X'};
System.out.print(new String(characters));
In this language known as Java, the result of adding two chars, shorts, or bytes is an int.
Thus, the integer value of U (85) is added to the integer value of X (88) and you get an integer value of 173 (85+88).
To Fix:
You'll probably want to make u a string. A string plus a char will be a string, as will a string plus a string.
String u = "U"; // u is a string
System.out.print(u + 'X'); // string plus a char is a string
String u = "U";
System.out.print(u + "X");
instead of char type use String class or StringBuilder class
Another way to convert one of the characters to a string:
char u = 'U';
System.out.print(Character.toString(u) + 'X');
This way could be useful when your variable is of type char for a good reason and you can't easily redeclare it as a String.
That "language called Java" bit amused me.
A quick search for "java concatenate" (which I recommend you do now and every time you have a question) revealed that most good Java programmers hate using + for concatenation. Even if it isn't used numerically when you want string concatenation, like in your code, it is also slow.
It seems that a much better way is to create a StringBuffer object and then call its append method for each string you want to be concatenated to it. See here: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/bestpractices/string_concatenation.html

Java - accessing characters in a string in a 2D-array-like manner?

Is there a more or less easy way (without having to implement it all by myself) to access characters in a string using a 2D array-like syntax?
For example:
"This is a string\nconsisting of\nthree lines"
Where you could access (read/write) the 'f' with something like myString[1][12] - second line, 13th row.
You can use the split() function. Assume your String is assigned to variable s, then
String[] temp = s.split("\n");
That returns an array where each array element is a string on its own new line. Then you can do
temp[1].charAt(3);
To access the 3rd letter (zero-based) of the first line (zero-based).
You could do it like this:
String myString = "This is a string\nconsisting of\nthree lines";
String myStringArr[] = myString.split("\n");
char myChar = myStringArr[1].charAt(12);
To modify character at positions in a string you can use StringBuffer
StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer("hello");
buf.insert(3, 'F');
System.out.println("" + buf.toString());
buf.deleteCharAt(3);
System.out.println("" + buf.toString());
Other than that splitting into a 2D matrix should be self implemented.
Briefly, no. Your only option is to create an object that wraps and interpolates over that string, and then provide a suitable accessor method e.g.
new Paragraph(myString).get(1,12);
Note that you can't use the indexed operator [number] for anything other than arrays.

Should StringBuilders always be used for string manipulation? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
when to use StringBuilder in java
If not which of these pieces of code is better and why
public String backAround(String str) {
int len = str.length();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(str);
char chEnd = sb.charAt(len-1);
if(len > 0){
sb = sb.append(chEnd);
sb= sb.insert(0,chEnd);
str= sb.toString();
return str;
}else{ return str;}
}
or
public String backAround(String str) {
// Get the last char
String back = str.substring(str.length()-1, str.length());
return back + str + back;
}
If you are just "sticking a few elements together" as in your backAround() method, you may as well just use the + notation. The compiler will convert this into appropriate StringBuilder.append()s for you, so why bother 'spelling things out'.
The idea of explicitly using StringBuilder is that in principle you can hand-optimise how exactly the elements are appended to the string, including setting the initial buffer capacity and ensuring that you don't accidentally create intermediate String objects that are unnecessary in cases where the compiler might not predict these things.
So essentially, explicitly use a StringBuilder when there is slightly more complex logic to deciding what to append to the string. For example, if you are appending things in a loop, or where what is appended depends on various conditions at different points. Another case where you might use StringBuilder is if the string needs to be built up from various methods, for example: you can then pass the StringBuilder into the different methods and ask them to append the various elements.
P.S. I should say that StringBuilder buys you a little more editing power as well (e.g. among other things, you can set its length) and, given the presence of the Appendable interface, you can actually create more generic methods that either append to a StringBuilder or to e.g. a StringWriter. But these are marginal cases, I would submit.
It really depends on what you are trying to do. In your case it seems like your trying to take a string and take the last letter and add it to the front and then add another to the end. For this i would probably do this:
public String manipulate(String string)
{
char c = string.charAt(string.length);
return c + string + c;
}
In this case you didn't have to use a StringBuilder. There are cases where the StringBuilder class is useful. Here are some things that are hard to do with a String that StringBuilder can do:
delete chars at an index
append chars at an index
get the index of a specific sequence
and much much more
if you want to see the documentation for StringBuilder:
String Builder
I hope this helped you out!

Java - Generating strings of length x

I have some 'heavy' string manipulation in my Java program, which often involves iterating through a String and replacing certain segments with filler characters, usually "#". These are characters are later removed but are used so that the length of the String and the current index are kept intact during the iteration.
This process usually involves replacing more than 1 character at a time.
e.g.
I might need to replace "cat" with "###" in the string "I love cats", giving "I love ###s",
So often I need to create strings of "#" with x length.
In python, this is easy.
NewString = "#" *x
In Java, I find my current method revolting.
String NewString = "";
for (int i=0; i< x; i++) {
NewString = NewString.concat("#"); }
Is there a proper, pre-established method for doing this?
Does anybody have a shorter, more 'golfed' method?
Thanks!
Specs:
Java SE (Jre7)
Windows 7 (32)
It's not clear to me what kind of regex the comments are suggesting, but creating a string filled with a particular character to the given length is pretty easy:
public static String createString(char character, int length) {
char[] chars = new char[length];
Arrays.fill(chars, character);
return new String(chars);
}
Guava has a nice little method Strings.repeat(String, int). Looking at the source of that method, it basically amounts to this:
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(string.length() * count);
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
builder.append(string);
}
return builder.toString();
Your way of building a string of length N is very inefficient. You should either use StringBuffer with its convenient append method, or build an array of N characters, and use the corresponding constructor of the String.
Can you always use the same characters in the "filler" String and do you know the maximum value of x? The you can create a constant upfront which can be cut to arbitrary length:
private static final FILLER = "##############################################";
// inside your method
String newString = FILLER.substring(0, x);
java.lang.String is immutable. So, concating strings would result in creation of temporary string objects and thus is slow. You should consider using a mutable buffer like StringBuffer or StringBuilder. Another best practice when working with strings in java is to prefer using CharSequence type wherever possible. This would avoid unnecessary calls to toString() and you can easily change the underlying implementation type.
If you are looking for a one liner to repeat strings and this justifies using an external library, have a look at StringUtils.repeat from Apache Commons library. But, I feel you can just write your own code than using another library for a trivial task of repeating strings.

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