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Difference Between String and Character Array in Java
On technical groud, we can say that both a character array and string contain the sequence of characters and used as a collection of characters. But there are significant differences between both which we would discuss below.
The following are the important differences between String and Character array.
Sr. No. | Key | String | Character array |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Implementation | String is implemented to store sequence of characters and to be represented as a single data type and single entity. | Character Array on the other hand is a sequential collection of data type char where each element is a separate entity. |
2 | Internal implementation | String internal implementation makes it immutable in nature. | Character array is mutable in nature on the other hands. |
3 | Built-in Functions | As String is a class so is provided with various built-in function substring(), charAt() etc. | No built in functions are provided in Java for operations on Character Arrays. |
4 | Concatenation | String can be concatenated either by using + operator or using its built in function concate(). | Character array could not use either of these function/operator to get concatenated. |
5 | Storage | Strings could be get stored in any random order in the part of memory which is known as SCP (String Constant Pool). | Elements in Character Array are stored contiguously in increasing memory locations which is known as Heap. |
6 | Conversion | A String can be converted into Character Array by using the toCharArray() method of String class. | On the other hand, a Character Array can be converted into String by passing it into a String Constructor. |
Example of String vs Character Array
JavaTester.java
public class JavaTester{ public static void main(String[] args) { String s = "HELLO"; char [] ch = s.toCharArray(); char[] a = {'H', 'E', 'L', 'L', 'O'}; String A = new String(a); System.out.println(s); System.out.println(A); } }
Output
HELLO HELLO
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