Is it possible to get only the first character of a String?

Question

I have a for loop in Java.

for (Legform ld : data)
{
    System.out.println(ld.getSymbol());
}

The output of the above for loop is

Pad

CaD

CaD

CaD

Now my question is it possible to get only the first characer of the string instead of the whole thing Pad or CaD

For example if it's Pad I need only the first letter, that is P
For example if it's CaD I need only the first letter, that is C

Is this possible?

score 92 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 03 '11 at 19:39

92

Use ld.charAt(0). It will return the first char of the String.

With ld.substring(0, 1), you can get the first character as String.

answered Nov 03 '11 at 19:39

Sibbo

3,796
2
23
41

score 57 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 03 '11 at 19:38

57

String has a charAt method that returns the character at the specified position. Like arrays and Lists, String is 0-indexed, i.e. the first character is at index 0 and the last character is at index length() - 1.

So, assuming getSymbol() returns a String, to print the first character, you could do:

System.out.println(ld.getSymbol().charAt(0)); // char at index 0

answered Nov 03 '11 at 19:38

Etienne de Martel

34,692
8
91
111

12

The only problem with this is the resulting value is a `char` not a `string`. – Luc Apr 14 '17 at 21:46

score 11 · Answer 3 · answered May 20 '20 at 03:59

11

The string has a substring method that returns the string at the specified position.

String name="123456789";
System.out.println(name.substring(0,1));

answered May 20 '20 at 03:59

Ali Hassan

188
4
8

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 23 '19 at 11:50

Here I am taking Mobile No From EditText It may start from +91 or 0 but i am getting actual 10 digits. Hope this will help you.

              String mob=edit_mobile.getText().toString();
                    if (mob.length() >= 10) {
                        if (mob.contains("+91")) {
                            mob= mob.substring(3, 13);
                        }
                        if (mob.substring(0, 1).contains("0")) {
                            mob= mob.substring(1, 11);
                        }
                        if (mob.contains("+")) {
                            mob= mob.replace("+", "");
                        }
                        mob= mob.substring(0, 10);
                        Log.i("mob", mob);

                    }

score -4 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 03 '20 at 11:04

Answering for C++ 14,

Yes, you can get the first character of a string simply by the following code snippet.

string s = "Happynewyear";
cout << s[0];

if you want to store the first character in a separate string,

string s = "Happynewyear";
string c = "";
c.push_back(s[0]);
cout << c;

score -10 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 03 '11 at 20:06

-10

Java strings are simply an array of char. So, char c = s[0] where s is string.

answered Nov 03 '11 at 20:06

PackratDragon

39
1

2

That is C or C++. In Java, it would work, but only if you cast the string to a char array. For example, like this: `s.toCharArray()[0];` – deLock Sep 01 '18 at 11:50

Is it possible to get only the first character of a String?

6 Answers6

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