View source for Tutorial:BeanShell/4 Strings


__NOCACHE__

Here we take a look at the various methods of manipulating strings, covering things from basic methods to regular expressions.

== String Methods ==

The most basic way to manipulate strings is through the methods that are build into them. We can perform a limited number of tasks to strings through these methods.  Let's create a string:

<jc lang="bsh">
test ="My first string";
print(test);
</jc>

Let us count the number of characters in this string, i.e. we want to calculate its
length. Use the function '''length()''':

<jc lang="bsh">
test = "My first string";
print( test.length() );
</jc>

Let's take our string and replace a word using the replace method:

<jc lang="bsh">
test = "My first string";
test = test.replace ( "first", "second" );
print(test);
</jc>

To find a  character or words, use "find". It finds the first occurrence of a given character or a word:

<jc bsh edit>
t="My first string";
index=t.indexOf("s"); print(index);         '' First occurrence 
index=t.lastIndexOf("ri");  print(index);   '' Last occurrence
index=t.lastIndexOf("OK");   print(index);  '' Not found
</jc>

<jnote> Exercise: Replace the character "s" in the above example by "ng" and print the answer. Try other combinations as well