Sams Teach Yourself Java 2 in 24 Hours

By Rogers Cadenhead

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • About the Technical Editor
  • Acknowledgments
  • We Want to Hear from You!
  • Reader Services
  • Introduction
  • Hour 1. Becoming a Programmer
  • Hour 2. Writing Your First Program
  • Hour 3. Vacationing in Java
  • Hour 4. Understanding How Java Programs Work
  • Part II: Learning the Basics of Programming
  • Hour 5. Storing and Changing Information in a Program
  • Hour 6. Using Strings to Communicate
    • Storing Text in Strings
    • Displaying Strings in Programs
    • Using Special Characters in Strings
    • Pasting Strings Together
    • Using Other Variables with Strings
    • Advanced String Handling
    • Workshop: Presenting Credits
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Quiz
    • Activities
  • Hour 7. Using Conditional Tests to Make Decisions
  • Hour 8. Repeating an Action with Loops
  • Part III: Working with Information in New Ways
  • Hour 9. Storing Information with Arrays
  • Hour 10. Creating Your First Object
  • Hour 11. Describing What Your Object Is Like
  • Hour 12. Making the Most of Existing Objects
  • Part IV: Programming a Graphical User Interface
  • Hour 13. Building a Simple User Interface
  • Hour 14. Laying Out a User Interface
  • Hour 15. Responding to User Input
  • Hour 16. Building a Complex User Interface
  • Part V: Creating Multimedia Programs
  • Hour 17. Creating Interactive Web Programs
  • Hour 18. Handling Errors in a Program
  • Hour 19. Creating a Threaded Program
  • Hour 20. Reading and Writing Files
  • Part VI: Creating Multimedia Programs
  • Hour 21. Using Fonts and Color
  • Hour 22. Playing Sound Files
  • Hour 23. Working with Graphics
  • Hour 24. Creating Animation
  • Part VII: Appendixes
  • Appendix A. Tackling New Features of Java 2 Version 1.4
  • Appendix B. Using the Java 2 Software Development Kit
  • Appendix C. Programming with the Java 2 Software Development Kit
  • Appendix D. Using Sun ONE Studio
  • Appendix E. Where to Go from Here: Java Resources
  • Appendix F. This Book's Web Site

Using Special Characters in Strings

When a string is being created or displayed, its text must be enclosed within double quotation marks to indicate the beginning and end of the string. These quotation marks are not displayed, which brings up a good question: What if you want to display double quotation marks?

To display them, Java has created a special code that can be put into a string: \". Whenever this code is encountered in a string, it is replaced with a double quotation mark. For example, examine the following:

System.out.println("Jane Campion directed \"The Piano\" in 1993."); 

This code is displayed as the following:

Jane Campion directed "The Piano" in 1993. 

You can insert several special characters into a string in this manner. The following list shows these special characters; note that each is preceded by a backslash (\).

The newline character causes the text following the newline character to be displayed at the beginning of the next line. Look at this example:

System.out.println("Music by\nMichael Nyman"); 

This statement would be displayed as the following:

Music by
Michael Nyman 

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