Difference between Long.toString(i) vs i + ""

Question

we often come across a scenario where in we need to pass a String representation of a primitive and More often then not we use

  WrapperClass.toString() ;

and sometimes we usually write

  i + "";

if we check to toString implementation of any wrapper class it creates a new String object every time we call it. and same is also true for primitive + "" (as Concatenation during runtime will create new String Object)

So is there any difference between them or they are just an alternative ways to convert a primitive to a String object;

Answer 1

Personally I like String.valueOf(i):

• You can use it with all types (even non-primitives)
• It's null-safe (assuming you're happy with a string value of "null" when converting a value of null)
• It expresses your intention far better than "" + i - that code expresses string concatenation, which isn't what you're after at all.