What Is String?

Now that you've covered primitive data types, you can move on to another important type that Java uses to work with text: String.

In Java, text is not stored using primitive types. Instead, it is handled using a special data type called String. A string is simply text stored in a variable.

You've already been using strings without even focusing on them, for example when printing messages:

System.out.println("Hello World");

Anything written inside double quotation marks is treated as a string in Java. Text can be stored in a variable like this:

String coffeeName = "Cappuccino";

String Is Not a Primitive Type

One important thing to understand is that String is not a primitive data type. Instead, it is a reference type, which means:

• it does not store the value directly
• it stores a reference to where the text is stored in memory

We will have an entire module dedicated to Strings where we'll go into more detail — for now just remember that Strings work a bit differently than numbers.

Strings Must Always Use Double Quotes

Correct:

String drink = "Latte";

Incorrect:

String drink = Latte;

Without quotes, Java thinks you are referring to a variable, not text.