How to Convert String to Char in Java

In this tutorial, we will learn how to convert string to char data type in Java easily.

There are mainly two ways for converting a string into char data type in Java. They are as:

• Convert using charAt() method
• Convert using toCharArray() method

To convert string to a char data type in Java, we use charAt() method of String class.  The general signature of charAt() method is as below:

public char charAt(int index)

This method takes an integer value, which represents an index number. The index number ranges from 0 to length() – 1. The charAt() method returns the character present at the specified index number in a string.

In other words, we can use charAt() method to extract a character from a specific position in a string. The first character (or char value) of the string is at index number 0, the next at index number 1,and so on, as for array indexing.

For example:

String str = "hello";  
char ch = str.charAt(1); // It will return character e.

Since the charAt() method returns a single character only, therefore, to get all characters, you need to use loop.

Let’s make a simple Java program to converting a string into char data type.

Program code 1:

package stringPrograms;
public class StringToChar {
public static void main(String[] args) 
{
// Create a string literal.	
   String str = "Hello"; 
// Call charAt() method of String class to convert string to char.  
   char ch = str.charAt(2); // index numbers begin at zero.
   System.out.println("Character at index number 2: " +ch);  
 }
}

Output:
      Character at index number 2: l

Let’s take another example program to convert all characters of a string into character using for loop.

Program code 2:

package stringPrograms;
public class StringToChar {
public static void main(String[] args) 
{
// Create a string literal.	
  String str = "Hello"; 
  for(int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) 
  {
// Call charAt() method of String class to convert string to char. 
   char ch = str.charAt(i);    
   System.out.println("Character at index "+i+": " +ch);
  }
 }
}

Output:
      Character at index 0: H
      Character at index 1: e
      Character at index 2: l
      Character at index 3: l
      Character at index 4: o

Converting String to Char in Java using toCharArray() method

Let’s create a Java program to convert string to char data type using toCharArray() method. The toCharArray() method of String class converts the string into a new character array.

The general syntax to declare toCharArray() method of String class is as:

char[ ] String toCharArray()

This method does not take any parameter. It returns a newly allocated character array whose length is the length of this string.

Program code 3:

package stringPrograms;
public class StringToChar {
public static void main(String[] args) 
{
// Create a string literal.	
  String str = "Scientech"; 
  char[ ] ch = str.toCharArray();    
  for(int i = 0; i < ch.length; i++)
  {    
  System.out.println("char at index "+i+": "+ch[i]);   
  }  
 }
}

Output:
      char at index 0: S
      char at index 1: c
      char at index 2: i
      char at index 3: e
      char at index 4: n
      char at index 5: t
      char at index 6: e
      char at index 7: c
      char at index 8: h

In this tutorial, you learned how to convert a string to char data type in Java in two ways easily. Hope that you will have understood the basic concepts for the conversion of a string into character and practiced all programs.
Thanks for reading!!!
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