What is the easiest/best/most correct way to iterate through the characters of a string in Java?

Question

Some ways to iterate through the characters of a string in Java are:

1. Using StringTokenizer?
2. Converting the String to a char[] and iterating over that.

What is the easiest/best/most correct way to iterate?

Answer 1

I use a for loop to iterate the string and use charAt() to get each character to examine it. Since the String is implemented with an array, the charAt() method is a constant time operation.

String s = "...stuff...";  for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++){     char c = s.charAt(i);             //Process char } 

That's what I would do. It seems the easiest to me.

As far as correctness goes, I don't believe that exists here. It is all based on your personal style.

Answer 2

Two options

for(int i = 0, n = s.length() ; i < n ; i++) {      char c = s.charAt(i);  } 

or

for(char c : s.toCharArray()) {     // process c } 

The first is probably faster, then 2nd is probably more readable.