Searching For Characters and Substring in a String in Java

08 Jul, 2022
Strings are a very important aspect from a programming perspective as many questions can be framed out among strings. There arise wide varied sets of concepts and questions that are pivotal to understanding strings. Now over here will be discussing different ways to play with strings where we will be playing with characters with strings and substrings which is a part of input strings with help of inbuilt methods and also by proposing logic listing wide varied ways as follows: 
Way 1: indexOf(char c)
It searches the index of specified characters within a given string. It starts searching from the beginning to the end of the string (from left to right) and returns the corresponding index if found otherwise returns -1. 
Note: If the given string contains multiple occurrences of a specified character then it returns the index of the only first occurrence of the specified character. 
Syntax: 
int indexOf(char c)
// Accepts character as argument, Returns index of 
// the first occurrence of specified character 
Way 2: lastIndexOf(char c)
It starts searching backward from the end of the string and returns the index of specified characters whenever it is encountered. 
Syntax: 
public int lastIndexOf(char c)
// Accepts character as argument, Returns an 
// index of the last occurrence specified 
// character
Way 3: indexOf(char c, int indexFrom)
It starts searching forward from the specified index in the string and returns the corresponding index when the specified character is encountered otherwise returns -1. 
Note: The returned index must be greater than or equal to the specified index. 
Syntax: 
public int IndexOf(char c, int indexFrom)
Parameters: 
The character to be searched
An integer from where searching
Return Type: An index of a specified character that appeared at or after the specified index in a forwarding direction.
Way 4: lastIndexOf(char c, int fromIndex)
It starts searching backward from the specified index in the string. And returns the corresponding index when the specified character is encountered otherwise returns -1. 
Note: The returned index must be less than or equal to the specified index. 
Syntax: 
public int lastIndexOf(char c, int fromIndex)
Way 5: charAt(int indexNumber)
Returns the character existing at the specified index, indexNumber in the given string. If the specified index number does not exist in the string, the method throws an unchecked exception, StringIndexOutOfBoundsException. 
Syntax:
char charAt(int indexNumber)
Example:
Java
// Java Program to Illustrate to Find a Character// in the String // Importing required classesimport java.io.*; // Main classclass GFG {     // Main driver method    public static void main(String[] args)    {         // String in which a character to be searched.        String str            = "GeeksforGeeks is a computer science portal";         // Returns index of first occurrence of character.        int firstIndex = str.indexOf('s');        System.out.println("First occurrence of char 's'"                           + " is found at : "                           + firstIndex);         // Returns index of last occurrence specified        // character.        int lastIndex = str.lastIndexOf('s');        System.out.println("Last occurrence of char 's' is"                           + " found at : " + lastIndex);         // Index of the first occurrence of specified char        // after the specified index if found.        int first_in = str.indexOf('s', 10);        System.out.println("First occurrence of char 's'"                           + " after index 10 : "                           + first_in);         int last_in = str.lastIndexOf('s', 20);        System.out.println("Last occurrence of char 's'"                           + " after index 20 is : "                           + last_in);         // gives ASCII value of character at location 20        int char_at = str.charAt(20);        System.out.println("Character at location 20: "                           + char_at);         // Note: If we uncomment it will throw        // StringIndexOutOfBoundsException        // char_at = str.charAt(50);    }}
First occurrence of char 's' is found at : 4
Last occurrence of char 's' is found at : 28
First occurrence of char 's' after index 10 : 12
Last occurrence of char 's' after index 20 is : 15
Character at location 20: 111
 Way 6: Searching Substring in the String
The methods used for searching a character in the string which are mentioned above can also be used for searching the substring in the string. 
Example
Java
// Java Program to illustrate to Find a Substring// in the String // Importing required classesimport java.io.*; // Main classclass GFG {     // Main driver method    public static void main(String[] args)    {         // A string in which a substring        // is to be searched        String str            = "GeeksforGeeks is a computer science portal";         // Returns index of first occurrence of substring        int firstIndex = str.indexOf("Geeks");         System.out.println("First occurrence of char Geeks"                           + " is found at : "                           + firstIndex);         // Returns index of last occurrence        int lastIndex = str.lastIndexOf("Geeks");        System.out.println(            "Last occurrence of char Geeks is"            + " found at : " + lastIndex);         // Index of the first occurrence        // after the specified index if found        int first_in = str.indexOf("Geeks", 10);        System.out.println("First occurrence of char Geeks"                           + " after index 10 : "                           + first_in);         int last_in = str.lastIndexOf("Geeks", 20);        System.out.println("Last occurrence of char Geeks "                           + "after index 20 is : "                           + last_in);    }}
First occurrence of char Geeks is found at : 0
Last occurrence of char Geeks is found at : 8
First occurrence of char Geeks after index 10 : -1
Last occurrence of char Geeks after index 20 is : 8
Way 7: contains(CharSequence seq): It returns true if the string contains the specified sequence of char values otherwise returns false. Its parameters specify the sequence of characters to be searched and throw NullPointerException if seq is null. 
Syntax: 
public boolean contains(CharSequence seq)
Note: CharSequence is an interface that is implemented by String class, Therefore we use string as an argument in contains() method. 
Example 
Java
// Java Program to Illustrate How to Find a Substring// in the String using contains() Method // Importing required classesimport java.io.*;import java.lang.*; // Classclass GFG {     // Main driver method    public static void main(String[] args)    {        // String in which substring        // to be searched        String test = "software";         CharSequence seq = "soft";        boolean bool = test.contains(seq);        System.out.println("Found soft?: " + bool);         // Returns true substring if found.        boolean seqFound = test.contains("war");        System.out.println("Found war? " + seqFound);         // Returns true substring if found        // otherwise return false        boolean sqFound = test.contains("wr");        System.out.println("Found wr?: " + sqFound);    }}
Found soft?: true
Found war? true
Found wr?: false
 Way 8: Matching String Start and End 
boolean startsWith(String str): Returns true if the string str exists at the starting of the given string, else false.
boolean startsWith(String str, int indexNum): Returns true if the string str exists at the starting of the index indexNum in the given string, else false.
boolean endsWith(String str): Returns true if the string str exists at the ending of the given string, else false.
Example:
Java
// Java Program to Match ofstart and endof a Substring // Importing required classesimport java.io.*; // Main classclass GFG {     // Main driver method    public static void main(String[] args)    {        // Input string in which substring        // is to be searched        String str            = "GeeksforGeeks is a computer science portal";         // Print and display commands        System.out.println(str.startsWith("Geek"));        System.out.println(str.startsWith("is", 14));        System.out.println(str.endsWith("port"));    }}
true
true
false
This article is contributed by Nitsdheerendra. If you like GeeksforGeeks and would like to contribute, you can also write an article using write.geeksforgeeks.org or mail your article to review-team@geeksforgeeks.org. See your article appearing on the GeeksforGeeks main page and help other Geeks.
solankimayank
karthikchowdaryetukuru1
hardikkoriintern
Java-String-Programs
Java-Strings
Java
School Programming
Strings
Java-Strings
Strings
Java
Writing code in comment?
Please use ide.geeksforgeeks.org,
generate link and share the link here.