created: 6/15/1998; revised: 09/05/1999, 06/12/2000, 05/04/2002, 01/19/2006, 06/15/2008

CHAPTER 29 — Strings and Object References

In previous chapters, methods were called with parameters that were primitive data types. This chapter discusses how to use object references as parameters. The class String is used in many examples.

Chapter Topics:

String literals
The null value
More about garbage
The String class
String concatenation
Strings are immutable
Some String methods
- concat()
- length()
- trim()
- substring()
- toLowerCase()
- startsWith()
- charAt()
Cascading methods

Students taking the computer science Advanced Placement examination are expected to be familiar with the String class.

QUESTION 1:

(Review:) What TWO things does the following statement do?

String zeta = new String( "The last rose of summer." );