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## java.lang
Interface CharSequence

All Known Implementing Classes:
  CharBuffer, String, StringBuffer, StringBuilder

    public interface CharSequence

A `CharSequence` is a readable sequence of `char` values. This interface provides uniform, read-only access to many different kinds of `char` sequences. A `char` value represents a character in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) or a surrogate. Refer to Unicode Character Representation for details.

This interface does not refine the general contracts of the `equals` and `hashCode` methods. The result of comparing two objects that implement `CharSequence` is therefore, in general, undefined. Each object may be implemented by a different class, and there is no guarantee that each class will be capable of testing its instances for equality with those of the other. It is therefore inappropriate to use arbitrary `CharSequence` instances as elements in a set or as keys in a map.

Since:
  1.4

Method Summary
`char` | `charAt(int index)` Returns the `char` value at the specified index.
`int` | `length()` Returns the length of this character sequence.
`CharSequence` | `subSequence(int start, int end)` Returns a new `CharSequence` that is a subsequence of this sequence.
`String` | `toString()` Returns a string containing the characters in this sequence in the same order as this sequence.

Method Detail

### length

    int length()

  Returns the length of this character sequence. The length is the number of 16-bit `char`s in the sequence.

  Returns:
    the number of `char`s in this sequence

### charAt

    char charAt(int index)

  Returns the `char` value at the specified index. An index ranges from zero to `length() - 1`. The first `char` value of the sequence is at index zero, the next at index one, and so on, as for array indexing.

  If the `char` value specified by the index is a surrogate, the surrogate value is returned.

  Parameters:
    `index` - the index of the `char` value to be returned
  Returns:
    the specified `char` value
  Throws:
    `IndexOutOfBoundsException` - if the `index` argument is negative or not less than `length()`

### subSequence

    CharSequence subSequence(int start,
                             int end)

  Returns a new `CharSequence` that is a subsequence of this sequence. The subsequence starts with the `char` value at the specified index and ends with the `char` value at index `end - 1`. The length (in `char`s) of the returned sequence is `end - start`, so if `start == end` then an empty sequence is returned.

  Parameters:
    `start` - the start index, inclusive
    `end` - the end index, exclusive
  Returns:
    the specified subsequence
  Throws:
    `IndexOutOfBoundsException` - if `start` or `end` are negative, if `end` is greater than `length()`, or if `start` is greater than `end`

### toString

    String toString()

  Returns a string containing the characters in this sequence in the same order as this sequence. The length of the string will be the length of this sequence.

  Overrides:
    `toString` in class `Object`
  Returns:
    a string consisting of exactly this sequence of characters

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For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java 2 SDK SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.

Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms. Also see the documentation redistribution policy.