String charAt() Java Example

In this post, we feature a comprehensive String charAt Java Example. This method in Java returns a char at the specified index.

1. Introduction

The java.lang.CharSequence interface provides read-only access to many different kinds of char sequence. It has provided a charAt method since version 1.4 to return the character value at the specified index. java.lang.String class implements java.lang.CharSequence. The string indexes start from zero to the string’s length() minus one.

Here is the method syntax:

char charAt(int index)

Parameters: index – the index of the char value to be returned.

Returns: the specified char value at the specified index. If the character value specified by the index is a surrogate, the surrogate value is returned.

Throws: IndexOutOfBoundsException if the index value is negative, equals to, or greater than the length() value.

2. Technologies Used

The example code in this article was built and run using:

• Java 11
• Eclipse Oxygen

3. Application

In this step, I will create a stand-alone Java application that defines a test string and prints out its character value at the index. I will demonstrate the exception when the index value is out of range as well as the string includes a surrogate value.

• loopString_charAt – create a for loop, starts from zero and ends with the orgString.length() minus one. Print out its char value for all the indexes.
• charAt_exception – create two try..catch statements to show the IndexOutOfBoundException.
• chatAt_surrogate – demonstrate a String with UTF-16 encoding with high-low surrogate pair values.
• main – Invokes loopString_charAt, loopString_surrogate, and charAc_exception.

DemoApp.java

package jcg.zheng.demo;

import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;

public class DemoApp {


    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String testString = "Mary Rocks!";
        System.out.println("Test String: " + testString);
        loopString_charAt(testString);
        charAt_exception(testString);
        charAt_surrogate();
    }

    private static void loopString_charAt(String orgString) {
        for (int pos = 0; pos < orgString.length(); ++pos) {
            char c = orgString.charAt(pos);
            System.out.println(orgString + "[" + pos + "]=" + c);
        }
    }

    private static void charAt_exception(String orgString) {
        try {
            orgString.charAt(-1);
        } catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
            System.out.println(e.getMessage());
        }

        try {
            orgString.charAt(orgString.length());
        } catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
            System.out.println(e.getMessage());
        }
    }

    private static void charAt_surrogate() {

        byte[] data = { 0, 0x41, // A
            (byte) 0xD8, 1, // High surrogate
            (byte) 0xDC, 2, // Low surrogate
            0, 0x42, // B
            (byte) 0xd800, (byte) 0xdfff,
        };

        try {
            String text = new String(data, "UTF-16");
            System.out.println("Origal String with surrogate, its length=" + text.length());
            System.out.println(text.charAt(0) + " " + text.codePointAt(0));
            System.out.println(text.charAt(1) + " " + text.codePointAt(1));
            System.out.println(text.charAt(2) + " " + text.codePointAt(2));
            System.out.println(text.charAt(3) + " " + text.codePointAt(3));
            System.out.println(text.charAt(4) + " " + text.codePointAt(4));
        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

}

4. Demo

In Eclipse, right-click DemoApp and click Run As Java Application. Capture the output here.

Output

Test String: Mary Rocks!
Mary Rocks![0]=M
Mary Rocks![1]=a
Mary Rocks![2]=r
Mary Rocks![3]=y
Mary Rocks![4]= 
Mary Rocks![5]=R
Mary Rocks![6]=o
Mary Rocks![7]=c
Mary Rocks![8]=k
Mary Rocks![9]=s
Mary Rocks![10]=!
String index out of range: -1
String index out of range: 11
Origal String with surrogate, its length=5
A 65
? 66562
? 56322
B 66
ÿ 255

5. String charAt() Java Example – Summary

In this example, I demonstrated how to use the charAt method to return a character value at the string’s specified index in three ways:

• When the parameter index is within the given string’s range.
• When the parameter index is out of range of the giving string value.
• When String has a surrogate value.

6. Download the Source Code

This example consists of a project which uses the charAt method to return String’s character value at a specified index.

Last updated on Jan. 14th, 2020

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