Remove characters from a String in Java

Strings in java are immutable. That means you need to create a new string or overwrite your old string to achieve the desired affect:

id = id.replace(".xml", "");

Strings are immutable. Therefore String.replace() does not modify id, it returns a new String with the appropriate value. Therefore you want to use id = id.replace(".xml", "");.

Can't you use

id = id.substring(0, id.length()-4);

And what Eric said, ofcourse.

Strings are immutable, so when you manipulate them you need to assign the result to a string:

String id = fileR.getName();
id = id.replace(".xml", ""); // this is the key line
idList.add(id);