Get first 4 characters of String in Java

Learn how to get first 4 characters of a String or simply any number of first characters of a string in Java.

Get first 4 characters of String – Example

To get substring having first 4 chars first check the length of string. If string length is greater than 4 then substring(int beginIndex, int lastIndex) method. This method takes start and last index positions to return the substring within those indices.

If string length is less than 4, we can return the complete string as it is.

If data is in not in string form, use String.valueOf() method to convert it to String, first.

String input = "123456789";		//input string
String firstFourChars = "";		//substring containing first 4 characters

if (input.length() > 4) 
{
    firstFourChars = input.substring(0, 4);
} 
else 
{
    firstFourChars = input;
}

System.out.println(firstFourChars);

Program output.

1234

If you wish to get first N characters (not 4), then replace '4' in above java program with desired number of characters. For example, to get first 2 characters we can change the method call to input.substring(0, 2).

Happy Learning !!

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