java中String为什么是不可变的

原文：

Why String is immutable or final in Java

Pankaj  November 29, 2012  Java

String is one of the most used classes in any programming language. As we know that String is immutable and final in java and java runtime maintains a String pool that makes it a special class.

String immutable Benefits

1. String pool is possible only because String is immutable in java, this way Java Runtime saves a lot of java heap space because different String variables can refer to same String variable in the pool. If String would not have been immutable, then String interning would not have been possible because if any variable would have changed the value, it would have been reflected to other variables also.

2. If String is not immutable then it would cause severe security threat to the application. For example, database username, password are passed as String to get database connection and in socket programminghost and port details passed as String. Since String is immutable it’s value can’t be changed otherwise any hacker could change the referenced value to cause security issues in the application.

3. Since String is immutable, it is safe for multithreading and a single String instance can be shared across different threads. This avoid the usage of synchronization for thread safety, Strings are implicitly thread safe.

4. Strings are used in java classloader and immutability provides security that correct class is getting loaded by Classloader. For example, think of an instance where you are trying to load java.sql.Connection class but the referenced value is changed to myhacked.Connection class that can do unwanted things to your database.

5. Since String is immutable, its hashcode is cached at the time of creation and it doesn’t need to be calculated again. This makes it a great candidate for key in a Map and it’s processing is fast than other HashMap key objects. This is why String is mostly used Object as HashMap keys.

Above are some of the reasons I could think of that shows benefits of String immutability. It’s a great feature of Java String class and makes it special.

翻译：

String是所有语言中最常用的一个类。我们知道在Java中，String是不可变的、final的。Java在运行时也保存了一个字符串池(String pool)，这使得String成为了一个特别的类。

String类不可变性的好处

1. 只有当字符串是不可变的，字符串池才有可能实现。字符串池的实现可以在运行时节约很多heap空间，因为不同的字符串变量都指向池中的同一个字符串。但如果字符串是可变的，那么String interning将不能实现(译者注：String interning是指对不同的字符串仅仅只保存一个，即不会保存多个相同的字符串。)，因为这样的话，如果变量改变了它的值，那么其它指向这个值的变量的值也会一起改变。
2. 如果字符串是可变的，那么会引起很严重的安全问题。譬如，数据库的用户名、密码都是以字符串的形式传入来获得数据库的连接，或者在socket编程中，主机名和端口都是以字符串的形式传入。因为字符串是不可变的，所以它的值是不可改变的，否则黑客们可以钻到空子，改变字符串指向的对象的值，造成安全漏洞。
3. 因为字符串是不可变的，所以是多线程安全的，同一个字符串实例可以被多个线程共享。这样便不用因为线程安全问题而使用同步。字符串自己便是线程安全的。
4. 类加载器要用到字符串，不可变性提供了安全性，以便正确的类被加载。譬如你想加载java.sql.Connection类，而这个值被改成了myhacked.Connection，那么会对你的数据库造成不可知的破坏。
5. 因为字符串是不可变的，所以在它创建的时候hashcode就被缓存了，不需要重新计算。这就使得字符串很适合作为Map中的键，字符串的处理速度要快过其它的键对象。这就是HashMap中的键往往都使用字符串。

以上就是我总结的字符串不可变性的好处。