Concatenation with strings

[link6790]

I am trying to perform a concatenation of seven strings to form a sentence but the Java compiler says cannot be applied to... here is my code

public class StringSentence
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String str1 = "This";
String str2 = " sentence";
String str3 = " is";
String str4 = " written";
String str5 = " using";
String str6 = " seven";
String str7 = " strings!";

System.out.println("The combination of these strings is: " + str1+concat(str2, str3, str4, str5, str6, str7));
}
}

[KevinWorkman]

What is this concat() method you speak of?

[sehudson]

It's as easy as a plus (+) sign :D

public class StringSentence
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String str1 = "This";
String str2 = " sentence";
String str3 = " is";
String str4 = " written";
String str5 = " using";
String str6 = " seven";
String str7 = " strings!";

System.out.println("The combination of these strings is: " + 
str1+" "+str2+" "+str3+" "+str4+" "+str5+" "+str6+" "+str7);
}
}

[dlorde]

Bear in mind that this kind of concatenation is very inefficient with the String class - not crucial in a one-off method like this, but for real-world applications where concatenation is used a lot, consider using StringBuilder instead.

[sehudson]

this is true

[fam2315]

once again you have judged correctly.

[KevinWorkman]

Bear in mind that this kind of concatenation is very inefficient with the String class - not crucial in a one-off method like this, but for real-world applications where concatenation is used a lot, consider using StringBuilder instead.

I've heard that before, but is that really true? From the String API:

String concatenation is implemented through the StringBuffer class and its append method.

Is a StringBuffer really that much less efficient than a StringBuilder?

Ah, I see, I've answered my own question by reading the StringBuffer API:

The StringBuilder class should generally be used in preference to this one, as it supports all of the same operations but it is faster, as it performs no synchronization.

Anyway, I'll still post this because it's slightly informative.

[dlorde]

...
Anyway, I'll still post this because it's slightly informative.

No, you're quite right - although StringBuilder may indeed be a bit faster than StringBuffer, I was misremembering the admonition against String concatenation in loops - where the String is modified every time round - as discussed in this old article and its comments.

So there it is - the mistake I couldn't promise I wouldn't make ;)

Time for bed.

[link6790]

Wow. It's kind of funny how my initial thread just completely turned around. Anyway, thanks sehudson. The plus signs worked! Not sure if my java teacher will care. He didn't specify to use a certain method. Now I'm on to String Buffer!:)

[sunde887]

The way I learned the difference is when reading thinking in java, they used javap to decompile the code and the produced instructions showed about half as many when using string builder instead of using the + operator.

[dlorde]

It's String concatenations in a loop that are the killer because a new, longer String must be allocated each time around...

[link6790]

This might be a stupid question but is it possible to store a set of Strings in a ArrayList and if so, how?

[goldest]

This might be a stupid question but is it possible to store a set of Strings in a ArrayList and if so, how?

How about add(E e) method of ArrayList?

Goldest

[link6790]

So this is what I have so far:

import java.util.*;
public class StringSentence
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
ArrayList strings = new ArrayList();
String str1 = "This";
String str2 = " sentence";
String str3 = " is";
String str4 = " written";
String str5 = " using";
String str6 = " seven";
String str7 = " strings!";
strings.add(E str1);
strings.add(E str2);
strings.add(E str3);
strings.add(E str4);
strings.add(E str5);
strings.add(E str6);
strings.add(E str7);

System.out.println("The combination of these strings is:" + strings);
}
}

It doesn't like the space after the E of the ) at the end.

[sunde887]

You don't add the E, the E specifies the type of argument add takes. E is the parametrized type of the list. So when you call the actual method it would look like this

add(/*args*/);

Also, if you want to use an array list you should parameterize it. To do this, add the type you want the list to score in brackets. Like this,

ArrayList<String> arr = new ArrayList<String>();

this is a list where each element is a string.

[Solarsonic]

You're makiing it harder than it really is. You could quite easily do this:

String sentence = str1+str2+str3+str4+str5+str6+str7;

[JosAH]

You're makiing it harder than it really is. You could quite easily do this:

String sentence = str1+str2+str3+str4+str5+str6+str7;

Please read the thread before you reply; pay special attention to reply #4.

kind regards,

Jos