Java Character Class: Enhancing Character Handling Beyond Primitive Types

Discover the Java Character class, which provides useful methods for manipulating characters beyond the primitive char data type. Learn how to leverage this class to perform operations such as case conversion, character classification, and more, improving your character handling capabilities in Java programming.

Java Character Class

Normally, when we work with characters, we use primitive data types char.

char ch = 'a';

// Unicode for uppercase Greek omega character
char uniChar = '\u039A'; 

// an array of chars
char[] charArray = {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'};

Use of Character Class in Java

In development, we come across situations where we need to use objects instead of primitive data types. Java provides a wrapper class Character for the primitive data type char.

The Character class offers a number of useful class (i.e., static) methods for manipulating characters. You can create a Character object with the Character constructor:

Character ch = new Character('a');

The Java compiler will also create a Character object for you under some circumstances. For example, if you pass a primitive char into a method that expects an object, the compiler automatically converts the char to a Character for you. This feature is called autoboxing or unboxing, if the conversion goes the other way.

Example of Java Character Class

// Here following primitive char 'a'
// is boxed into the Character object ch
Character ch = 'a';

// Here primitive 'x' is boxed for method test,
// return is unboxed to char 'c'
char c = test('x');

Escape Sequences

A character preceded by a backslash (\) is an escape sequence and has a special meaning to the compiler.

The newline character (\n) has been used frequently in this tutorial in System.out.println() statements to advance to the next line after the string is printed.

When an escape sequence is encountered in a print statement, the compiler interprets it accordingly.

Example: Escape Sequences

If you want to put quotes within quotes, you must use the escape sequence, \", on the interior quotes:

public class Test {
public static void main(String args[]) {
System.out.println("She said \"Hello!\" to me.");
}
}

She said "Hello!" to me.

Character Class Declaration

Following is the declaration for java.lang.Character class:

public final class Character
extends Object
implements Serializable, Comparable<Character>

Fields

Following are the fields for java.lang.Character class: