Convert List of Character to String in Java

This post will discuss how to convert a list of Characters to string in Java.

1. Naive solution

A simple solution is to iterate through the list and create a new string with the help of the StringBuilder class, as shown below:

import java.util.Arrays;

import java.util.List;

// Convert list of Characters to string in Java

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

List<Character> chars = Arrays.asList('T', 'e', 'c', 'h', 'i', 'e');

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

for (Character ch: chars) {

sb.append(ch);

}

String string = sb.toString();

System.out.println(string); // Techie

}

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2. Using Java 8

In Java 8, we can make use of Stream with Collectors, as shown below:

import java.util.Arrays;

import java.util.List;

import java.util.stream.Collectors;

// Convert list of Characters to string in Java 8 and above

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

List<Character> chars = Arrays.asList('T', 'e', 'c', 'h', 'i', 'e');

String string = chars.stream() // Stream<Character>

.map(String::valueOf) // Stream<String>

.collect(Collectors.joining());

System.out.println(string); // Techie

}

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3. Using Guava Library

We can use Guava’s Joiner class to join pieces of text specified as an array and returns the results as a String. We can use this class, as shown below:

import com.google.common.base.Joiner;

import java.util.Arrays;

import java.util.List;

// Convert list of Characters to string in Java using Guava

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

List<Character> chars = Arrays.asList('T', 'e', 'c', 'h', 'i', 'e');

String string = Joiner.on("").join(chars);

System.out.println(string); // Techie

}

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4. Using Apache Commons Lang

Like Guava, Apache Commons Lang StringUtils class offers a join() method that can join the specified array elements into a single string.

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;

import java.util.Arrays;

import java.util.List;

// Convert list of Characters to string in Java using Apache Commons

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

List<Character> chars = Arrays.asList('T', 'e', 'c', 'h', 'i', 'e');

String string = StringUtils.join(chars, null);

System.out.println(string); // Techie

}

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5. Using `List.toString()` method

(Not recommended)

We can get a string representation of the list elements, which are enclosed in square brackets ("[]"), and all adjacent elements are separated by a comma, followed by a space ", ". The idea is to get rid of the square brackets using the substring() method and comma + space by using the replaceAll() method.

import java.util.Arrays;

import java.util.List;

// Convert list of Characters to string in Java

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

List<Character> chars = Arrays.asList('T', 'e', 'c', 'h', 'i', 'e');

String string = chars.toString()

.substring(1, 3*chars.size()-1)

.replaceAll(", ", "");

System.out.println(string); // Techie

}

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That’s all about converting List of Character to Java String.

Convert List of Character to String in Java

1. Naive solution

2. Using Java 8

3. Using Guava Library

4. Using Apache Commons Lang

5. Using List.toString() method

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5. Using `List.toString()` method