StringBuilder

Java StringBuilder class is used to create mutable (modifiable) string. The Java StringBuilder class is same as StringBuffer class except that it is non-synchronized. It is available since JDK 1.5.

Comparing StringBuffer, StringBuilder, Formatter and StringJoiner

The StringBuffer, StringBuilder, Formatter and StringJoiner classes are Java SE utility classes that are primarily used for assembling strings from other information:

The `StringBuffer` class has been present since Java 1.0, and provides a variety of methods for building and modifying a "buffer" containing a sequence of characters.

The `StringBuilder` class was added in Java 5 to address performance issues with the original `StringBuffer` class. The APIs for the two clases are essentially the same. The main difference between `StringBuffer` and `StringBuilder` is that the former is thread-safe and synchronized and the latter is not.

This example shows how StringBuilder is can be used:

int one = 1;
String color = "red";
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append("One=").append(one).append(", Color=").append(color).append('\n');
System.out.print(sb);
// Prints "One=1, Colour=red" followed by an ASCII newline.

(The StringBuffer class is used the same way: just change StringBuilder to StringBuffer in the above)

The StringBuffer and StringBuilder classes are suitable for both assembling and modifying strings; i.e they provide methods for replacing and removing characters as well as adding them in various. The remining two classes are specific to the task of assembling strings.

The `Formatter` class was added in Java 5, and is loosely modeled on the `sprintf` function in the C standard library. It takes a **format** string with embedded **format specifiers** and a sequences of other arguments, and generates a string by converting the arguments into text and substituting them in place of the format specifiers. The details of the format specifiers say how the arguments are converted into text.

The `StringJoiner` class was added in Java 8. It is a special purpose formatter that succinctly formats a sequence of strings with separators between them. It is designed with a **fluent** API, and can be used with Java 8 streams.

Here are some typical examples of Formatter usage:

// This does the same thing as the StringBuilder example above
int one = 1;
String color = "red";
Formatter f = new Formatter();
System.out.print(f.format("One=%d, colour=%s%n", one, color));
// Prints "One=1, Colour=red" followed by the platform's line separator

// The same thing using the `String.format` convenience method
System.out.print(String.format("One=%d, color=%s%n", one, color));

The StringJoiner class is not ideal for the above task, so here is an example of a formatting an array of strings.

StringJoiner sj = new StringJoiner(", ", "[", "]");
for (String s : new String[]{"A", "B", "C"}) {
    sj.add(s);
}
System.out.println(sj);
// Prints "[A, B, C]"

The use-cases for the 4 classes can be summarized:

StringBuilder suitable for any string assembly OR string modification task.
StringBuffer use (only) when you require a thread-safe version of StringBuilder.

`Formatter` provides much richer string formatting functionality, but is not as efficient as `StringBuilder`. This is because each call to `Formatter.format(...)` entails:

Repeat a String n times

Problem: Create a String containing n repetitions of a String s.

The trivial approach would be repeatedly concatenating the String

final int n = ...
final String s = ...
String result = "";

for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
    result += s;
}

This creates n new string instances containing 1 to n repetitions of s resulting in a runtime of O(s.length() * n²) = O(s.length() * (1+2+...+(n-1)+n)).

To avoid this StringBuilder should be used, which allows creating the String in O(s.length() * n) instead:

final int n = ...
final String s = ...

StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();

for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
    builder.append(s);
}

String result = builder.toString();

Syntax

new StringBuilder ()
new StringBuilder (int capacity)
new StringBuilder (CharSequence seq)
new StringBuilder (StringBuilder builder)
new StringBuilder (String string)
new StringJoiner (CharSequence delimiter)
new StringJoiner (CharSequence delimiter, CharSequence prefix, CharSequence suffix)

Remarks

Creating a new StringBuilder with type char as a parameter would result in calling the constructor with argument int capacity and not the one with argument String string:

StringBuilder v = new StringBuilder('I'); //'I' is a character, "I" is a String.
 System.out.println(v.capacity()); --> output 73
 System.out.println(v.toString()); --> output nothing