# How-To: Java charAt() String Function

A *string* is a sequence of *characters*. Sometimes we need to access a character in the string. The Java String function `charAt()` returns the character at a given position in a string.

Here is an example. First, we create a string in Java:

```Java
String s = "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.";
```

The string value is this entire sentence: *The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.* The variable `s` refers to the string. We use this variable to invoke String methods on the string.

Next, we invoke the `charAt()` method on the string variable `s`, passing the parameter `4`. This function returns the `char` value at position 4. Since string indexes start at `0`, the function returns character `q`. Note that a space is a character too. The code assigns the return value of the function to the `char` variable `c`:

```Java
char c = s.charAt(4);
```

Finally we output `c`:

```Java
System.out.println(c);  // q
```
Here is the complete program:

```java

public class Example {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    
    String s = "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.";

    char c = s.charAt(4);
    System.out.println(c);  // q

  }
}
```

Execute the program to see the output `q` in the terminal.

Note that `s.charAt(0)` returns the first character in the string: `T`.

Try the `charAt()` String function to retrieve other characters in the string.

Thanks for reading. 😃

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