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Introduction to Strings
What are Strings?
A string is a sequence of characters. In most programming languages, strings are represented as arrays of characters with special properties and methods.
Real-World Analogy
Think of a string like a necklace of beads, where each bead represents a character:
H
e
l
l
o
Just like you can count beads, add or remove them, or rearrange them on a necklace, you can perform similar operations on characters in a string.
Key Characteristics
- Strings are indexed - each character has a position (starting from 0)
- Strings have a length - the number of characters
- Strings can be immutable (cannot be changed after creation) in some languages
- Strings support various operations like concatenation, slicing, and searching
Common String Operations
- Access: Retrieving a character at a specific index
- Traversal: Visiting each character in sequence
- Concatenation: Joining two strings together
- Substring: Extracting a portion of a string
- Search: Finding a pattern within a string
Learning Objective
Understand the fundamental concepts of strings and their importance in data structures and algorithms.
What are Strings?
A string is a sequence of characters. In most programming languages, strings are represented as arrays of characters with special properties and methods.
Strings are one of the most commonly used data types in programming, used to represent text, identifiers, and other character-based data.
Real-World Analogy
Think of a string like a necklace of beads, where each bead represents a character:
H
e
l
l
o
Just like you can count beads, add or remove them, or rearrange them on a necklace, you can perform similar operations on characters in a string.
Key Characteristics of Strings
1Indexed Access
Each character in a string has a position (index), starting from 0.
2Length Property
Strings have a length property that tells you how many characters they contain.
3Immutability
In many languages, strings are immutable, meaning they cannot be changed after creation.
4Operations
Strings support various operations like concatenation, slicing, and searching.
Common String Operations
Access
Retrieving a character at a specific index.
string[index]
Traversal
Visiting each character in sequence.
for char in string
Concatenation
Joining two strings together.
string1 + string2
Substring
Extracting a portion of a string.
string[start:end]
Search
Finding a pattern within a string.
string.indexOf(pattern)
Replace
Replacing occurrences of a pattern.
string.replace(old, new)