Yes: in output statements like this:
System.out.println( "Result is:" + result );
The "+" operator is a short way of asking for concatenation.
(If result
is a number, it is converted
into characters before the concatenation is done).
String first = "Dempster " ; String last = "Dumpster" ; String name = first + last ;
This does the same thing as the first version (plus some optimization which can be ignored for now). Only Strings have this short-cut.
String concatenation,
done by concat()
or by +,
always constructs a
new object
based on data in other objects.
Those objects are not altered at all.
When an operator such as + changes meaning depending on its arguments, it is said to be overloaded.