String.indexOf gives a value one less than expected

Question

I do not understand the behaviour of the String.index Of method.

String peter = \"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper\";
  System.out.println(\"The numbe         


        

Answer 1

Indexes are zero-based:

        ↓
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper
          111111111122222222223333333333444
0123456789012345678901234567890123456789012
        ↑

The first p is at index 8.

From the javadoc of indexOf():

Returns the index of the first occurrence of the character in the character sequence represented by this object, or -1 if the character does not occur.