Alternately, if you want a 'character', then you need the
charAt(int index) function.
firstLetter should contain the character 'a'
So to answer the 'unasked' question, Strings are ZERO based, just like C-style strings, which are zero-based arrays of chars.
If, for whatever reason, you want a C-style char array from a
java String, there is a method
toCharArray() And as a last comment Bart, you're not simple minded. You just don't know certain things yet. Which is why places like JavaRanch are pretty cool.
[This message has been edited by Mike Curwen (edited September 06, 2001).]