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Why String Is Immutable or Final in Java: Friday, October 1, 2010

This document discusses why the String class is immutable (unchangeable) in Java. There are several key reasons: 1) Immutability allows String objects to be safely shared and reused due to string interning. If Strings were mutable, changing one reference could unintentionally change other references. 2) Immutable Strings are more secure when used as parameters for classes like File I/O where changing the String could enable unauthorized access. 3) Immutability makes Strings thread-safe and avoids synchronization issues when accessed from multiple threads. It also allows the hashcode to be cached for fast lookups in hash-based collections. 4) Immutability is important for security in the class loading

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Salman Yousafzai
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42 views2 pages

Why String Is Immutable or Final in Java: Friday, October 1, 2010

This document discusses why the String class is immutable (unchangeable) in Java. There are several key reasons: 1) Immutability allows String objects to be safely shared and reused due to string interning. If Strings were mutable, changing one reference could unintentionally change other references. 2) Immutable Strings are more secure when used as parameters for classes like File I/O where changing the String could enable unauthorized access. 3) Immutability makes Strings thread-safe and avoids synchronization issues when accessed from multiple threads. It also allows the hashcode to be cached for fast lookups in hash-based collections. 4) Immutability is important for security in the class loading

Uploaded by

Salman Yousafzai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2010

Why String is immutable or final in Java


This is one of the most popular String Interview questions in Java, which starts with
discussion of, What is String, How String in Java is different than String in C and C++,
and then shifted towards what is immutable object in Java , what are the benefits of
immutable object , why do you use it and which scenarios do you use it. This is some
time also asked as "Why String is final in Java" . Though there could be many possible
answer for this question, and only designer of String class can answer this , I think
below two does make sense

1) Imagine StringPool facility without making string immutable , its not possible at all
because in case of string pool one string object/literal e.g. "Test" has referenced by
many reference variables , so if any one of them change the value others will be
automatically gets affected i.e. lets say

String A = "Test"
String B = "Test"

Now String B called "Test".toUpperCase() which change the same object into
"TEST" , so A will also be "TEST" which is not desirable.

2)String has been widely used as parameter for many Java classes e.g. for opening
network connection, you can pass hostname and port number as string , you can pass
database URL as string for opening database connection, you can open any file in
Java by passing name of file as argument to File I/O classes.

In case, if String is not immutable, this would lead serious security threat , I mean
some one can access to any file for which he has authorization, and then can
change the file name either deliberately or accidentally and gain access of those file.
Because of immutability, you don't need to worry about those kind of threats. This
reason also gel with, Why String is final in Java, by
making java.lang.String final, Java designer ensured that no one overrides any
behavior of String class.

3)Since String is immutable it can safely shared between many threads ,which is very
important for multithreaded programming and to avoid any synchronization issues in
Java, Immutability also makes String instance thread-safe in Java, means you don't
need to synchronize String operation externally. Another important point to note
about String is memory leak caused by SubString, which is not a thread related issues
but something to be aware of.

4) Another reason of Why String is immutable in Java is to allow String to cache its
hashcode , being immutable String in Java caches its hashcode, and do
not calculate every time we call hashcode method of String, which makes it very fast
as hashmap key to be used in hashmap in Java. This one is also suggested by Jaroslav
Sedlacek in comments below. In short because String is immutable, no one can change
its contents once created which guarantees hashCode of String to be same on multiple
invocation.

5) Another good reason of Why String is immutable in Java suggested by Dan Bergh
Johnsson on comments is: The absolutely most important reason that String is
immutable is that it is used by the class loading mechanism, and thus have profound
and fundamental security aspects. Had String been mutable, a request to load
"java.io.Writer" could have been changed to load
"mil.vogoon.DiskErasingWriter"

Security and String pool being primary reason of making String immutable, I believe
there could be some more very convincing reasons as well, Please post those reasons
as comments and I will include those on this post. By the way, above reason holds
good to answer, another Java interview questions "Why String is final in Java". Also
to be immutable you have to be final, so that your subclass doesn't break
immutability. what do you guys think ?

Read more: http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-string-is-immutable-in-


java.html#ixzz2vs2QbkJ4

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