Does java define string as null terminated?
Java strings are not terminated with a null characters as in C or C++. Although java strings uses internally the char array but there is no terminating null in that. String class provides a method called length to know the number of characters in the string.
Here is the simple code and its debugger contents:
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s = "Juned";
System.out.println(s);
}
Debugger screenshot:
I'd like to know that if java defines string as null terminated.
No. A String is defined to be a fixed length sequence of char
values. All possible char
values (from 0 to 65535) may be used in a String. There is no "distinguished" value that means that the string ends1.
So how they track string ending? Using length?
Yes. A String
object has a private length
field (in all implementations I've examined ...).
If you want to understand more about how Java strings are implemented, the source code for various versions is available online. Google for "java.lang.String source".
1 - As noted, neither the JLS or the javadocs for String
specifically that a String
implementation cannot use NUL termination. However, the fact that all characters including NUL are significant in a String
means that NUL termination is not practical.