StringBuffer Vs StringBuilder

From an Interview point of view, StringBuilder and StringBuffer are the most important topics that everyone should learn in Java.

A) Key Points of StringBuffer and StringBuilder:

1. What are StringBuffer and StringBuilder:

• Both are classes in Java used for manipulating string objects.

• StringBuffer and StringBuilder both are used to create mutable string objects.

• As String is Immutable we can use StringBuffer and StringBuilder to create mutable String objects.

1. Differences between StringBuffer and StringBuilder:

• StringBuffer is thread-safe, while StringBuilder is not.

• StringBuffer is synchronized, while StringBuilder is not.

• StringBuilder is faster than StringBuffer in non-concurrent environments.

1. When to use StringBuffer or StringBuilder:

• Use StringBuffer when thread safety is required.

• Use StringBuilder when thread safety is not required.

1. Common methods of StringBuffer and StringBuilder:

• append(): appends a string to the end of the buffer.

• insert(): inserts a string at a specified position in the buffer.

• delete(): removes a sequence of characters from the buffer.

• replace(): replaces a sequence of characters with another sequence.

• These 4 methods are used, a lot of time by developers.

1. Performance considerations:

• StringBuffer and StringBuilder are faster than concatenating strings using the "+" operator, especially when dealing with large strings.

• StringBuilder is faster than StringBuffer in non-concurrent environments, but the performance difference is negligible for small strings.

• Let me explain this with one example:

  Example 1:
  String s = "Hello";

  for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++) {

  s += "world";

  }

  In this example, the "+" operator is used to concatenate "world" to the string "s" 10,000 times. This creates a new string object every time, resulting in poor performance. Using StringBuffer or StringBuilder instead would be much faster:

  Example 2:
  StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("Hello");

  for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++) {

  sb.append("world");

  }

  String s = sb.toString();

  In this example, StringBuffer is used to append "world" to the buffer 10,000 times, and then toString() is called to convert the buffer to a string. This creates only one new string object, resulting in better performance.

• Best practices:

• Use StringBuffer or StringBuilder appropriately depending on the requirements of your application.

• Be mindful of the performance implications when manipulating large strings.

B) Here are some examples of StringBuffer and StringBuilder:

1. Creating an empty StringBuffer and appending strings to it:

   StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();

   sb.append("Hello");

   sb.append(" ");

   sb.append("world!");

   System.out.println(sb.toString()); // Output: Hello world!

1. Creating a StringBuilder and inserting a string at a specific position:

   StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("Hello world");

   sb.insert(5, ",");

   System.out.println(sb.toString()); // Output: Hello, world

1. Creating a StringBuffer and deleting a sequence of characters:

   StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("Hello world");

   sb.delete(5, 11);

   System.out.println(sb.toString()); // Output: Hello

1. Creating a StringBuilder and replacing a sequence of characters:

   StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("Hello world");

   sb.replace(6, 11, "Java");

   System.out.println(sb.toString()); // Output: Hello Java

1. Concatenating strings using StringBuffer:

   String s1 = "Hello";

   String s2 = "world!";

   StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();

   sb.append(s1).append(" ").append(s2);

   System.out.println(sb.toString()); // Output: Hello world!

1. Concatenating strings using StringBuilder:

   String s1 = "Hello";

   String s2 = "world!";

   StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

   sb.append(s1).append(" ").append(s2);

   System.out.println(sb.toString()); // Output: Hello world!

Here are some more common methods of StringBuffer and StringBuilder:

• capacity(): returns the current capacity of the buffer.

• length(): returns the length (number of characters) of the buffer.

• reverse(): reverses the sequence of characters in the buffer.

• toString(): returns the contents of the buffer as a string.

Here are the code examples:

StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("hello");

System.out.println(sb.capacity()); // Output: 21 (default capacity is 16 + length of "hello")

System.out.println(sb.length()); // Output: 5

sb.reverse();

System.out.println(sb.toString()); // Output: olleh