How to System.out.println the string reference

[saxena vicky]

For Example:
String s = new String("xyz");
how can I print the object reference of String object s

[Michael Lloyd Lee]

You can not (excluding JNI).

The best you could do is get the hashcode via System.identityHashCode(java.lang.Object), as Object.hascode() is typically implemented by converting the internal address of the object into an integer, but this implementation technique is not required by the JavaTM programming language.

Why do you want it?

[saxena vicky]

Thanks Michael !
But the value return from System.identityHashCode(java.lang.Object), as Object.hascode() are different, why ?

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Read the Javadoc for String.hashCode().

Returns a hash code for this string. The hash code for a String object is computed as

s[0]*31^(n-1) + s[1]*31^(n-2) + ... + s[n-1]


using int arithmetic, where s[i] is the ith character of the string, n is the length of the string, and ^ indicates exponentiation. (The hash value of the empty string is zero.)

[Steve Morrow]

String s = new String("xyz");

It's worth mentioning that this kind of construct is considered a poor programming practice due to the way String objects and literals work in Java (Strings are immutable and one should avoid creating unnecessary objects). The following is preferred:

String s = "xyz";

[Michael Lloyd Lee]

Originally posted by saxena vicky:
Thanks Michael !
But the value return from System.identityHashCode(java.lang.Object), as Object.hascode() are different, why ?

Maybe I should of clarified that as java.lang.Object.hashCode().

They should return different values, as hashCode() is overridden by String (to the method shown above).

Again, why do you want this?

[Norm Radder]

Here's the generated byte code for the two ways to init a String reference:

public class TestNew {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s1 = "AAA";
String s2 = new String("BBB");
}
}
/*  byte code
 0 ldc #2 <AAA>
 2 astore_1
 3 new #3 <java/lang/String>
 6 dup
 7 ldc #4 <BBB>
 9 invokespecial #5 <java/lang/String.<init>>
12 astore_2
13 return
*/  

[Steve Morrow]

If I may be so bold as to add a comment on the bytecode...

String s1 = "AAA";
------------------------------------
0 ldc #2 <AAA>
2 astore_1
------------------------------------

String s2 = new String("BBB");
------------------------------------
3 new #3 <java/lang/String>
6 dup
7 ldc #4 <BBB>
9 invokespecial #5 <java/lang/String.<init>>
12 astore_2
------------------------------------

13 return