Why can't strings be mutable in Java and .NET?

Question

Why is it that they decided to make String immutable in Java and .NET (and some other languages)? Why didn\'t they make it mutable?

Answer 1

I know this is a bump, but... Are they really immutable? Consider the following.

public static unsafe void MutableReplaceIndex(string s, char c, int i)
{
    fixed (char* ptr = s)
    {
        *((char*)(ptr + i)) = c;
    }
}

...

string s = "abc";
MutableReplaceIndex(s, '1', 0);
MutableReplaceIndex(s, '2', 1);
MutableReplaceIndex(s, '3', 2);
Console.WriteLine(s); // Prints 1 2 3

You could even make it an extension method.

public static class Extensions
{
    public static unsafe void MutableReplaceIndex(this string s, char c, int i)
    {
        fixed (char* ptr = s)
        {
            *((char*)(ptr + i)) = c;
        }
    }
}

Which makes the following work

s.MutableReplaceIndex('1', 0);
s.MutableReplaceIndex('2', 1);
s.MutableReplaceIndex('3', 2);

Conclusion: They're in an immutable state which is known by the compiler. Of couse the above only applies to .NET strings as Java doesn't have pointers. However a string can be entirely mutable using pointers in C#. It's not how pointers are intended to be used, has practical usage or is safely used; it's however possible, thus bending the whole "mutable" rule. You can normally not modify an index directly of a string and this is the only way. There is a way that this could be prevented by disallowing pointer instances of strings or making a copy when a string is pointed to, but neither is done, which makes strings in C# not entirely immutable.