Java lastIndexOf Examples

Call lastIndexOf with chars and String arguments. Search from the end of a String.

LastIndexOf. A string contains the letters "abc." But this occurs twice in the string. With lastIndexOf we search from the rightmost index of a String.indexOf

With an index argument, we begin searching from a certain position in the string. In a while-loop, we can scan for all occurrences of a string from the end of the source string.

Method example. This simple example uses the lastIndexOf method with char arguments. It locates first the final instance of the char.

Info: As with indexOf, lastIndexOf can accept a String and a starting index as arguments. It mirrors indexOf in these ways.

Strings

Here: We find the last "s" in the string "spins." But the character "x" is not present in the string.

Java program that uses lastIndexOf public class Program { public static void main(String[] args) { String line = "spins"; // Get index of last "s." int result1 = line.lastIndexOf('s'); System.out.println(result1); // There is no "x" in the string. // ... This returns negative 1. int result2 = line.lastIndexOf('x'); System.out.println(result2); } } Output 4 -1

While, search strings. Here we call lastIndexOf with a string argument in a while-loop. The lastIndexOf call locates the last "cat" string at a starting position.

Argument 1: This is the string (or character) we are searching for in the source string.

Argument 2: This is the starting position. With lastIndexOf we begin searching from this index to the left.

Tip: At the end of the while-loop we must decrement the index variable i to continue searching the string to the left.

Java program that uses lastIndexOf in while-loop public class Program { public static void main(String[] args) { // The string we are searching. String line = "cat cat;cat"; // Search from this index (the last index). int i = line.length() - 1; // Continue calling lastIndexOf from the last start position. while ((i = line.lastIndexOf("cat", i)) >= 0) { // The string "cat" was found. // ... It starts at this position. System.out.println(line.substring(i)); // Move to previous index. i--; } } } Output cat cat;cat cat cat;cat

Benchmark, lastIndexOf. Sometimes we can use lastIndexOf as an optimization. If a substring occurs 0 or 1 times in a String, indexOf and lastIndexOf return the same result.

Version 1: This code calls the indexOf method, so it searches for the char 8 from the start of the string.

Version 2: This version of the code uses lastIndexOf, so it searches for the char from the string's end instead.

Result: If, based on our data, we find that the value occurs near the end more often, lastIndexOf is a faster yet equal method.

Java program that times indexOf, lastIndexOf public class Program { public static void main(String[] args) { String input = "0123456789"; long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis(); // Version 1: use indexOf. for (int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++) { int index = input.indexOf('8'); if (index < 0) { System.out.println(false); } } long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis(); // Version 2: use lastIndexOf. for (int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++) { int index = input.lastIndexOf('8'); if (index < 0) { System.out.println(false); } } long t3 = System.currentTimeMillis(); // ... Times. System.out.println(t2 - t1); System.out.println(t3 - t2); } } Output 41 ms, indexOf 14 ms, lastIndexOf

A review. The lastIndexOf method searches from the right to the left. It is essentially the same method as indexOf but with an inverted order of searching.

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Java lastIndexOf Examples

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