Difference Between Character Array and String

In this post, we will understand the difference between character array and string.

Strings

• They are immutable.

• Once they are defined, they can’t be changed.

• It refers to a sequence of characters, which is represented as a single data type.

• It contains built-in functions such as substring(), charAt().

• The ‘+’ operator can be used to append strings together, which would form a new string.

• The charAt() method helps access characters at a specific index within a ‘String’.

• These strings are stored in the ‘String Constant Pool’.

• It is not preferred to store passwords in strings in Java.

• A string can be converted to a character array using toCharArray() method of ‘String’ class.

Example

String my_string = "JANE" ;
char [] ch = my_string.toCharArray();

Character Arrays

• They are mutable.

• This means their values can be changed.

• It is a sequential collection of data type ‘char’.

• It doesn’t have built-in methods to perform operations on character arrays in Java.

• The ‘+’ operator can’t be used to append two character arrays.

• The characters in a character array can be accessed using index.

• The values in a character array are stored in contiguous memory locations.

• All character arrays are stored in Heap.

• The passwords can be stored in character arrays in Java.

• A character array can be converted into a string by passing it to a String Constructor.

Example

char[] my_char = {'J','A','N','E'};
String my_str = new String(my_char);