Get last n characters from a String in Java

This post will discuss how to get the last n characters from a string in Java.

1. Using Apache Commons Lang

To get the rightmost n characters of a string, you can use the right() method offered by the StringUtils class from Apache Commons Lang. The advantage of using this method is that it doesn’t throw StringIndexOutOfBoundsException or NullPointerException when n characters are not available, or the string is null.

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;

public class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args) {

String s = "ABCD";

int n = 2;

System.out.println(StringUtils.right(s, n)); // CD

}

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2. Using `String.substring()` method

To remove the n characters from the end of a string, you can make a call to the substring() method with the last n indices excluded. Here’s a utility method demonstrating this:

public class Main

{

public static String getLastN(String s, int n) {

if (s == null || n > s.length()) {

return s;

}

return s.substring(s.length() - n);

}

public static void main(String[] args) {

String s = "ABCD";

int n = 2;

System.out.println(getLastN(s, n)); // CD

}

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Here’s an alternative version that performs length check within the substring() method:

public class Main

{

public static String getLastN(String s, int n) {

if (s == null) {

return null;

}

return s.substring(Math.max(0, s.length() - n));

}

public static void main(String[] args) {

String s = "ABCD";

int n = 2;

System.out.println(getLastN(s, n)); // CD

}

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That’s all about getting the last n characters from a string in Java.

Get last n characters from a String in Java

1. Using Apache Commons Lang

2. Using String.substring() method

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2. Using `String.substring()` method