Typical mistakes with String in Java

Just few typical mistakes developers do when dealing with Strings. It's common stuff and everybody knows that, but for some reasons I still find such things (even written by myself :-)).

1. Checking empty string

In old days (version 1.5 and lower) we used String.equal(""), but 1.6 brought us String.IsEmpty which is better and faster.

 // wrong/slow  
 if (name.equals("")) {  

 // correct/fast
 if (name.isEmpty()) {

2. Concatenation

Method String.concat creates new String object, it's OK to use it when you do operation only once, otherwise use operator + += operators (see below why).

 String s = "Hello ".concat("new").concat(" world!"); // "Hello new world!"  

Using operators + and +=, they do not use String.concat method but StringBuilder and it's important to know what it means to us.

 String s = "Hello " + "new" + " world!"; // "Hello new world!"

What actually happens when you use + operator is StringBuilder used:

 String s = new StringBuilder().append("Hello ").append("new").append(" world!").toString(); // "Hello new world!"

So conclusion - it's ok to use concat if you do one time operation, for any other situation I would recommend to use + or +=.

3. String Formatting

Very often in order to format string people either concatenate the string to achieve result or do replace or invent something else. I do it as well sometimes (what a shame!). Instead we should use String.format method to do that.

 int n = 10;  
 // wrong  
 String s = "I have " + Integer.toString(10) + " books";  
 // wrong  
 String s = "I have #num books".replace("#num", Integer.toString(10));  
 // correct  
 Strig s = String.format("I have %d books", n);  

I would be glad to hear other typical mistakes we do with String object! So please share your experience.