Counting String objects created by Java code

Question

How many String objects are created by the following code?

String x = new String(\"xyz\");
String y = \"abc\";
x = x + y;

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Answer 1

new String(”xyz“) for sure creates a new instance. "abc" and "xyz" are stored in the class constant pool, x = x + y creates a StringBuilder under the hood and therefore creates a new String, so the count of strings are 4 here.

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The compiler might substitute x + y with a constant ("xyzabc"), though.