int to String while String concatenation in java

Question

When a java compiler sees a concatenation statement as below:

int x = 1234;
String y = "Some random String " + x;

or a print statement like this:

int x = 1234;
System.out.println(x);

How does it convert the primitive integer(int) to its String representation? I know if it was an Integer class, its toString() method would have been called. And i don't think here the concept of auto-boxing is taking place.

Here's some info on the first: https://stackoverflow.com/q/14782804/1553851 — shmosel, Sep 27 '17 at 04:20
And here's some on the second: https://stackoverflow.com/q/10746174/1553851 — shmosel, Sep 27 '17 at 04:23

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 27 '17 at 04:24

Bytecode of

int i = 10;
System.out.println("" + i);

will look like this

GETSTATIC java/lang/System.out : Ljava/io/PrintStream;
NEW java/lang/StringBuilder
DUP
INVOKESPECIAL java/lang/StringBuilder.<init> ()V
LDC ""
INVOKEVIRTUAL java/lang/StringBuilder.append (Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lang/StringBuilder;
ILOAD 1
INVOKEVIRTUAL java/lang/StringBuilder.append (I)Ljava/lang/StringBuilder;
INVOKEVIRTUAL java/lang/StringBuilder.toString ()Ljava/lang/String;
INVOKEVIRTUAL java/io/PrintStream.println (Ljava/lang/String;)V

As you can see new StringBuilder is created and append(int) method is invoked.

System.out.println(10) case even simpler. There is several overloaded method whit name println and one of them accept int as parameter.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 27 '17 at 05:42

Your two examples are not related.

In the first example

int x = 1234;
String y = "Some random String " + x;

Here basically following code is generated internally.

new StringBuilder("Some random String ").append(x)

In the 2nd Example

int x = 1234;
System.out.println(x);

There are so many overloaded methods of the PrintStream System.out:

println(boolean x)
println(char x)
println(int x)
println(long x)
println(float x)
println(double x)
println(char x[])
println(String x)
println(Object x)

here println(int x) is invoked

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 23 '17 at 02:34

String is a Class in Java. int is a primitive type.

You can't force cast a primitive type to an Object.

Operand "+" is a special operand, for example:

public class TestSimplePlus 
{ 
    public static void main(String[] args) 
    { 
      String s = "abc"; 
      String ss = "ok" + s + "xyz" + 5; 
      System.out.println(ss); 
    } 
}

let's take a look at the decompilation code:

package string; 
import java.io.PrintStream; 
public class TestSimplePlus 
{ 
public TestSimplePlus() 
    { 
//    0    0:aload_0          
//    1    1:invokespecial   #8   <Method void Object()> 
//    2    4:return           
    } 
public static void main(String args[]) 
    { 
      String s = "abc"; 
//    0    0:ldc1            #16  <String "abc"> 
//    1    2:astore_1         
      String ss = (new StringBuilder("ok")).append(s).append("xyz").append(5).toString(); 
//    2    3:new             #18  <Class StringBuilder> 
//    3    6:dup              
//    4    7:ldc1            #20  <String "ok"> 
//    5    9:invokespecial   #22  <Method void StringBuilder(String)> 
//    6   12:aload_1          
//    7   13:invokevirtual   #25  <Method StringBuilder StringBuilder.append(String)> 
//    8   16:ldc1            #29  <String "xyz"> 
//    9   18:invokevirtual   #25  <Method StringBuilder StringBuilder.append(String)> 
//   10   21:iconst_5         
//   11   22:invokevirtual   #31  <Method StringBuilder StringBuilder.append(int)> 
//   12   25:invokevirtual   #34  <Method String StringBuilder.toString()> 
//   13   28:astore_2         
      System.out.println(ss); 
//   14   29:getstatic       #38  <Field PrintStream System.out> 
//   15   32:aload_2          
//   16   33:invokevirtual   #44  <Method void PrintStream.println(String)> 
//   17   36:return           
    } 
}

As we can see, "+" operand is to call StringBuilder.append() while at least one of the parameters is string

Hope you get it!

int to String while String concatenation in java

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