Book Image

Java Coding Problems - Second Edition

By : Anghel Leonard
Book Image

Java Coding Problems - Second Edition

By: Anghel Leonard

Overview of this book

The super-fast evolution of the JDK between versions 12 and 21 has made the learning curve of modern Java steeper, and increased the time needed to learn it. This book will make your learning journey quicker and increase your willingness to try Java’s new features by explaining the correct practices and decisions related to complexity, performance, readability, and more. Java Coding Problems takes you through Java’s latest features but doesn’t always advocate the use of new solutions — instead, it focuses on revealing the trade-offs involved in deciding what the best solution is for a certain problem. There are more than two hundred brand new and carefully selected problems in this second edition, chosen to highlight and cover the core everyday challenges of a Java programmer. Apart from providing a comprehensive compendium of problem solutions based on real-world examples, this book will also give you the confidence to answer questions relating to matching particular streams and methods to various problems. By the end of this book you will have gained a strong understanding of Java’s new features and have the confidence to develop and choose the right solutions to your problems.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Text Blocks, Locales, Numbers, and Math
Free Chapter
2
Objects, Immutability, Switch Expressions, and Pattern Matching
14
Other Books You May Enjoy
15
Index

13. Concatenating strings versus StringBuilder

Check out the following plain string concatenation:

String str1 = "I love";
String str2 = "Java";
String str12 = str1 + " " + str2; 

We know that the String class is immutable (a created String cannot be modified). This means that creating str12 requires an intermediary string that represents the concatenation of str1 with white space. So after str12 is created, we know that str1 + " " is just noise or garbage, since we cannot refer to it further.

In such scenarios, the recommendation is to use a StringBuilder, since it is a mutable class and we can append strings to it. So this is how the following statement was born: In Java, don’t use the “+" operator to concatenate strings! Use StringBuilder, which is much faster.

Have you heard this statement before? I’m pretty sure you have, especially if you still run your applications on JDK 8 or even on a previous...