java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -4

Question

I have this simple Java code which gives the following error: java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -4

the code is:

String date = "14000101";
String repayDate = date.substring(0, 4)+"-"+date.substring(5, 2)+"-"+date.substring(6, 2);

the length of the string is 8 and yet it gives an error starting form the second part.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

According the doc; Throws `IndexOutOfBoundsException` - if beginIndex or endIndex are negative, if endIndex is greater than length(), or if beginIndex is greater than startIndex — Mustafa Çil, Jul 04 '17 at 06:29
Second argument of substring method is not the legnth but the end position of the substring. So, you want something like:date.substring(0, 4)+"-"+date.substring(5, 7)+"-"+date.substring(6, 8); — jolumg, Jul 04 '17 at 06:34
The really interesting question here: why do we have such great existing question for ArrayIndexOutOfBounds, and NPE, ... but not for this stuff? — GhostCat, Jul 04 '17 at 06:37
Possible duplicate of [getting java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException error](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13517711/getting-java-lang-stringindexoutofboundsexception-error) — seenukarthi, Jul 04 '17 at 07:07

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 04 '17 at 06:29

3

date.substring(5, 2) should be date.substring(5, 7) and date.substring(6, 2) should be date.substring(6, 8).

The second argument is the index of the character following the last character of the desired sub-string.

answered Jul 04 '17 at 06:29

Eran

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 04 '17 at 06:36

You are givin negative values:

[Api][1] [1]: http://www.w3api.com/wiki/Java:String.substring()

public String substring(int beginIndex)
public String substring(int beginIndex, int endIndex)

If you put beginIndex lower that endIndex, crash.

You should do something like this:

String repayDate = date.substring(0, 4)+"-"+date.substring(5, 7)+"-"+date.substring(6, 8);

Try it! Good luck.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

substring(int beginIndex, int endIndex)

In your code, endIndex is lesser than beginIndex. Check this

beginIndex - the beginning index, inclusive.
endIndex - the ending index, exclusive.

IndexOutOfBoundsException - if the beginIndex is negative, or 
endIndex is larger than the length of this String object, or 
beginIndex is larger than endIndex.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Jul 04 '17 at 06:30

Saurav Sahu

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 04 '17 at 06:31

java is kind of different to python....

this is invalid as reflected in the doc

 substring(5, 2)

the second integer must be bigger than the first one

if (endIndex > value.length) {
      throw new StringIndexOutOfBoundsException(endIndex);
}

if you mean to get 2 chars after the first parameter then do something like

substring(5, 5 + 2);

or even better:

int beginIndex = 5;
String dateB = date.substring(beginIndex, beginIndex + 2);

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 04 '17 at 06:31

0

read javadoc for java.lang.String.substring(int, int)

String date = "14000101";
    String repayDate = date.substring(0, 4)+"-"+date.substring(4, 6)+"-"+date.substring(6, 8);
    System.out.println(repayDate);

answered Jul 04 '17 at 06:31

rackdevelop247

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java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -4

5 Answers5