String is immutable. What exactly is the meaning? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Probably every answer provided above is right, but my answer is specific to use of hashCode() method, to prove the points like, String... once created can't be modified and modifications will results in new value at different memory location.

public class ImmutabilityTest {

    private String changingRef = "TEST_STRING";

    public static void main(String a[]) {

        ImmutabilityTest dn = new ImmutabilityTest();

        System.out.println("ChangingRef for TEST_STRING OLD : "
                + dn.changingRef.hashCode());

        dn.changingRef = "NEW_TEST_STRING";
        System.out.println("ChangingRef for NEW_TEST_STRING : "
                + dn.changingRef.hashCode());

        dn.changingRef = "TEST_STRING";
        System.out.println("ChangingRef for TEST_STRING BACK : "
                + dn.changingRef.hashCode());

        dn.changingRef = "NEW_TEST_STRING";
        System.out.println("ChangingRef for NEW_TEST_STRING BACK : "
                + dn.changingRef.hashCode());

        String str = new String("STRING1");
        System.out.println("String Class STRING1 : " + str.hashCode());

        str = new String("STRING2");
        System.out.println("String Class STRING2 : " + str.hashCode());

        str = new String("STRING1");
        System.out.println("String Class STRING1 BACK : " + str.hashCode());

        str = new String("STRING2");
        System.out.println("String Class STRING2 BACK : " + str.hashCode());

    }
}

OUTPUT

ChangingRef for TEST_STRING OLD : 247540830
ChangingRef for NEW_TEST_STRING : 970356767
ChangingRef for TEST_STRING BACK : 247540830
ChangingRef for NEW_TEST_STRING BACK : 970356767
String Class STRING1 : -1163776448
String Class STRING2 : -1163776447
String Class STRING1 BACK : -1163776448
String Class STRING2 BACK : -1163776447

Answer 2

I think the following code clears the difference:

String A = new String("Venugopal");
String B = A;

A = A +"mitul";

System.out.println("A is " + A);
System.out.println("B is " + B);

StringBuffer SA = new StringBuffer("Venugopal");
StringBuffer SB = SA;

SA = SA.append("mitul");

System.out.println("SA is " + SA);
System.out.println("SB is " + SB);

Answer 3

If some object bar holds a reference to a mutable object foo and encapsulates some of its state in mutable aspects of foo's state, that will allow code which can change those aspects of foo to change the corresponding aspects of bar's state without actually touching bar or even knowing of its existence. Generally, this means that objects which encapsulate their own state using mutable objects must ensure that no references to those objects are exposed to any code which might unexpectedly mutate them. By contrast, if bar holds a reference to an object moo and only uses immutable aspects of moo other than identity to encapsulate its state, then bar can freely expose moo to outside code without worrying about anything the outside code might do to it.

Answer 4

You are not changing the object in the assignment statement, you replace one immutable object with another one. Object String("a") does not change to String("ty"), it gets discarded, and a reference to ty gets written into a in its stead.

In contrast, StringBuffer represents a mutable object. You can do this:

StringBuffer b = new StringBuffer("Hello");
System.out.writeln(b);
b.append(", world!");
System.out.writeln(b);

Here, you did not re-assign b: it still points to the same object, but the content of that object has changed.

Answer 5

In your example, the variable a is just a reference to an instance of a string object. When you say a = "ty", you are not actually changing the string object, but rather pointing the reference at an entirely different instance of the string class.

Answer 6

String is immutable it means that,the content of the String Object can't be change, once it is created. If you want to modify the content then you can go for StringBuffer/StringBuilder instead of String. StringBuffer and StringBuilder are mutable classes.