Get the Middle Character

Description:

You are going to be given a word. Your job is to return the middle character of the word. If the word’s length is odd, return the middle character. If the word’s length is even, return the middle 2 characters.

Examples:

Kata.getMiddle("test") should return "es"

Kata.getMiddle("testing") should return "t"

Kata.getMiddle("middle") should return "dd"

Kata.getMiddle("A") should return "A"

Input

A word (string) of length 0 < str < 1000

Output

The middle character(s) of the word represented as a string.

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My Solution

public static String getMiddle(String word) {
        String str = null;
        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();

        if (word.length() %2 == 0 && word.length() != 1) {
            sb.append(word.charAt( word.length() /2 -1));
            sb.append(word.charAt(word.length()/2));
            str = sb.toString();        
            return str;
        }else if(word.length() == 1) {
            return word;
        }else{
            sb.append(word.charAt(word.length()/2));
            str = sb.toString();
            return str;
        }

    }

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Better Solution

public static String getMiddle(String word) {
    String s = "";
    int length = word.length();
    int half = length/2;

    if (length % 2 == 0) {

      s = word.substring(half - 1, half + 1);

    } else {

      s = word.substring(half, half + 1);

    }

    return s;
  }