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Converting an integer and a character to a string in 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());

Java Insert randomly into String

How do i insert a random variable into a string?
I created a a variable that gets me a random position in the string that i want to put a char in, but I do not know how to use that random value in order to put that char in that certain position. Here is the code I did to get the random variable-
r=0+Math.random()*intTop;
I know this gives me a double, which is why i will cast it later. intTop is the length of the string that i will put the char in. I did this substring and it does not work,-
stringTop=stringTop.substring((int)r,lastBot);
lastBot is the char variable that i want to insert at position r of the string. Please help I am truly stuck.

Java Strings are immutable which means you cannot modify a String in place. Rather, you should create a new string. You can accomplish this by splitting the original string into two parts and inserting the new character in between. Something like this,
stringTop.substring(0, r) + lastBot + stringTop.substring(r);
Hope this helps you

to put a char in a certain position of a string
char[] chars = str.toCharArray();
chars[r] = c;
str = new String(chars);
or
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(str);
sb.setCharAt(r, c);
str = sb.toString();

StringTokenizer delimiters for each Character

I've got a string that I'm supposed to use StringTokenizer on for a course. I've got my plan on how to implement the project, but I cannot find any reference as to how I will make the delimiter each character.
Basically, a String such as "Hippo Campus is a party place" I need to divide into tokens for each character and then compare them to a set of values and swap out a particular one with another. I know how to do everything else, but what the delimiter would be for separating each character?

If you really want to use StringTokenizer you could use like below
String myStr = "Hippo Campus is a party place".replaceAll("", " ");
StringTokenizer tokens = new StringTokenizer(myStr," ");
Or even you can use split for this. And your result will be String array with each character.
String myStr = "Hippo Campus is a party place";
String [] chars = myStr.split("");
for(String str:chars ){
System.out.println(str);
}

Convert the String to an array. There is no delimiter for separating every single character, and it wouldnt make sense to use string tokenizer to do that even if there was.
You can do something like:
char[] individualChars = someString.toCharArray;
Then iterate through that array like so:
for (char c : individualChars){
//do something with the chars.
}

You can do some thing like make the string in to a Char array.
char[] simpleArray = sampleString.toCharArray();
This will split the String to a set of characters. So you can do the operations which you have stated above.

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.

Java string split without space

I'm trying to split some user input. The input is of the form a1 b2 c3 d4.
For each input (eg; a1), how do I split it into 'a' and '1'?
I'm familiar with the string split function, but what do I specify as the delimiter or is this even possible?
Thanks.

You could use String#substring()
String a1 = "a1"
String firstLetterStr = a1.substring(0,1);
String secondLetterStr = a1.substirng(1,a1.length());
Similarly,
String c31 = "c31"
String firstLetterStr = c31.substring(0,1);
String secondLetterStr = c31.substirng(1,c31.length());

If you want to split the string generically (rather than trying to count characters per the other answers), you can still use String.split(), but you have to utilize regular expressions. (Note: This answer will work when you have strings like a1, a2, aaa333, etc.)
String ALPHA = "\p{Alpha}";
String NUMERIC = "\d";
String test1 = "a1";
String test2 = "aa22";
ArrayList<String> alpha = new ArrayList();
ArrayList<String> numeric = new ArrayList();
alpha.add(test1.split(ALPHA));
numeric.add(test1.split(NUMERIC));
alpha.add(test2.split(ALPHA));
numeric.add(test2.split(NUMERIC));
At this point, the alpha array will have the alpha parts of your strings and the numeric array will have the numeric parts. (Note: I didn't actually compile this to test that it would work, but it should give you the basic idea.)

it really depends how you're going to use the data afterwards, but besides split("") or accessing individual characters by index, one other way to split into individual character is toCharArray() -- which just breaks the string into an array of characters...

Yes, it is possible, you can use split("");

After you split user input into individual tokens using split(" "), you can split each token into characters using split("") (using the empty string as the delimiter).

Split on space into an array of Strings, then pull the individual characters with String.charAt(0) and String.charAt(1)

I would recommend just iterating over the characters in threes.
for(int i = 0; i < str.length(); i += 3) {
char theLetter = str.charAt(i);
char theNumber = str.charAt(i + 1);
// Do something
}
Edit: if it can be more than one letter or digit, use regular expressions:
([a-z]+)(\d+)
Information: http://www.regular-expressions.info/java.html