Introduction

This chapter introduces Java's string- and character-processing capabilities. The techniques discussed here are appropriate for validating program input, displaying information to users and other text-based manipulations. The techniques are also appropriate for developing text editors, word processors, page-layout software, computerized typesetting systems and other kinds of text-processing software. We have already presented several string-processing capabilities in earlier chapters. This chapter discusses in detail the capabilities of class String, class StringBuffer and class Character from the java.lang package and class StringTokenizer from the java.util package. These classes provide the foundation for string and character manipulation in Java.

The chapter also discusses regular expressions that provide applications with the capability to validate input. The functionality is located in the String class along with classes Matcher and Pattern located in the java.util.regex package.