CharSequence (Java 2 Platform SE 5.0) (original) (raw)

java.lang

Interface CharSequence

All Known Implementing Classes:

CharBuffer, String, StringBuffer, StringBuilder

public interface CharSequence

A CharSequence is a readable sequence of char values. This interface provides uniform, read-only access to many different kinds ofchar sequences. A char value represents a character in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) or a surrogate. Refer to Unicode Character Representation for details.

This interface does not refine the general contracts of the equals and hashCode methods. The result of comparing two objects that implement CharSequence is therefore, in general, undefined. Each object may be implemented by a different class, and there is no guarantee that each class will be capable of testing its instances for equality with those of the other. It is therefore inappropriate to use arbitrary CharSequence instances as elements in a set or as keys in a map.

Since:

1.4

Method Summary
char	charAt(int index) Returns the char value at the specified index.
int	length() Returns the length of this character sequence.
CharSequence	[subSequence](../../java/lang/CharSequence.html#subSequence%28int, int%29)(int start, int end) Returns a new CharSequence that is a subsequence of this sequence.
String	toString() Returns a string containing the characters in this sequence in the same order as this sequence.

Method Detail

length

int length()

Returns the length of this character sequence. The length is the number of 16-bit chars in the sequence.

Returns:

the number of chars in this sequence

charAt

char charAt(int index)

Returns the char value at the specified index. An index ranges from zero to length() - 1. The first char value of the sequence is at index zero, the next at index one, and so on, as for array indexing.

If the char value specified by the index is asurrogate, the surrogate value is returned.

Parameters:

index - the index of the char value to be returned

Returns:

the specified char value

Throws:

[IndexOutOfBoundsException](../../java/lang/IndexOutOfBoundsException.html "class in java.lang") - if the index argument is negative or not less thanlength()

subSequence

CharSequence subSequence(int start, int end)

Returns a new CharSequence that is a subsequence of this sequence. The subsequence starts with the char value at the specified index and ends with the char value at index end - 1. The length (in chars) of the returned sequence is end - start, so if start == end then an empty sequence is returned.

Parameters:

start - the start index, inclusive

end - the end index, exclusive

Returns:

the specified subsequence

Throws:

[IndexOutOfBoundsException](../../java/lang/IndexOutOfBoundsException.html "class in java.lang") - if start or end are negative, if end is greater than length(), or if start is greater than end

toString

String toString()

Returns a string containing the characters in this sequence in the same order as this sequence. The length of the string will be the length of this sequence.

Overrides:

[toString](../../java/lang/Object.html#toString%28%29) in class [Object](../../java/lang/Object.html "class in java.lang")

Returns:

a string consisting of exactly this sequence of characters

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For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java 2 SDK SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.