[StringName]s are immutable strings designed for general-purpose representation of unique names (also called "string interning"). Two [StringName]s with the same value are the same object. Comparing them is extremely fast compared to regular [String]s.
You will usually pass a [String] to methods expecting a [StringName] and it will be automatically converted (often at compile time), but in rare cases you can construct a [StringName] ahead of time with the [StringName] constructor or, in GDScript, the literal syntax [code]&"example"[/code]. Manually constructing a [StringName] allows you to control when the conversion from [String] occurs or to use the literal and prevent conversions entirely.
See also [NodePath], which is a similar concept specifically designed to store pre-parsed scene tree paths.
All of [String]'s methods are available in this class too. They convert the [StringName] into a string, and they also return a string. This is highly inefficient and should only be used if the string is desired.
[b]Note:[/b] In C#, an explicit conversion to [code]System.String[/code] is required to use the methods listed on this page. Use the [code]ToString()[/code] method to cast a [StringName] to a string, and then use the equivalent methods in [code]System.String[/code] or [code]StringExtensions[/code].
[b]Note:[/b] In a boolean context, a [StringName] will evaluate to [code]false[/code] if it is empty ([code]StringName("")[/code]). Otherwise, a [StringName] will always evaluate to [code]true[/code]. The [code]not[/code] operator cannot be used. Instead, [method is_empty] should be used to check for empty [StringName]s.
Converts the string representing a binary number into an [int]. The string may optionally be prefixed with [code]"0b"[/code], and an additional [code]-[/code] prefix for negative numbers.
Returns a copy of the string with special characters escaped using the C language standard.
</description>
</method>
<methodname="c_unescape"qualifiers="const">
<returntype="String"/>
<description>
Returns a copy of the string with escaped characters replaced by their meanings. Supported escape sequences are [code]\'[/code], [code]\"[/code], [code]\\[/code], [code]\a[/code], [code]\b[/code], [code]\f[/code], [code]\n[/code], [code]\r[/code], [code]\t[/code], [code]\v[/code].
[b]Note:[/b] Unlike the GDScript parser, this method doesn't support the [code]\uXXXX[/code] escape sequence.
Changes the appearance of the string: replaces underscores ([code]_[/code]) with spaces, adds spaces before uppercase letters in the middle of a word, converts all letters to lowercase, then converts the first one and each one following a space to uppercase.
[codeblocks]
[gdscript]
"move_local_x".capitalize() # Returns "Move Local X"
Performs a case-sensitive comparison to another string. Returns [code]-1[/code] if less than, [code]1[/code] if greater than, or [code]0[/code] if equal. "Less than" and "greater than" are determined by the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters]Unicode code points[/url] of each string, which roughly matches the alphabetical order.
With different string lengths, returns [code]1[/code] if this string is longer than the [param to] string, or [code]-1[/code] if shorter. Note that the length of empty strings is [i]always[/i] [code]0[/code].
To get a [bool] result from a string comparison, use the [code]==[/code] operator instead. See also [method nocasecmp_to], [method filecasecmp_to], and [method naturalcasecmp_to].
Returns the number of occurrences of the substring [param what] between [param from] and [param to] positions. If [param to] is 0, the search continues until the end of the string.
Returns the number of occurrences of the substring [param what] between [param from] and [param to] positions, [b]ignoring case[/b]. If [param to] is 0, the search continues until the end of the string.
Returns a string with [param chars] characters erased starting from [param position]. If [param chars] goes beyond the string's length given the specified [param position], fewer characters will be erased from the returned string. Returns an empty string if either [param position] or [param chars] is negative. Returns the original string unmodified if [param chars] is [code]0[/code].
Like [method naturalcasecmp_to] but prioritizes strings that begin with periods ([code].[/code]) and underscores ([code]_[/code]) before any other character. Useful when sorting folders or file names.
To get a [bool] result from a string comparison, use the [code]==[/code] operator instead. See also [method filenocasecmp_to], [method naturalcasecmp_to], and [method casecmp_to].
Like [method naturalnocasecmp_to] but prioritizes strings that begin with periods ([code].[/code]) and underscores ([code]_[/code]) before any other character. Useful when sorting folders or file names.
To get a [bool] result from a string comparison, use the [code]==[/code] operator instead. See also [method filecasecmp_to], [method naturalnocasecmp_to], and [method nocasecmp_to].
Returns the index of the [b]first[/b] occurrence of [param what] in this string, or [code]-1[/code] if there are none. The search's start can be specified with [param from], continuing to the end of the string.
[b]Note:[/b] If you just want to know whether the string contains [param what], use [method contains]. In GDScript, you may also use the [code]in[/code] operator.
Returns the index of the [b]first[/b] [b]case-insensitive[/b] occurrence of [param what] in this string, or [code]-1[/code] if there are none. The starting search index can be specified with [param from], continuing to the end of the string.
Formats the string by replacing all occurrences of [param placeholder] with the elements of [param values].
[param values] can be a [Dictionary] or an [Array]. Any underscores in [param placeholder] will be replaced with the corresponding keys in advance. Array elements use their index as keys.
Some additional handling is performed when [param values] is an [Array]. If [param placeholder] does not contain an underscore, the elements of the [param values] array will be used to replace one occurrence of the placeholder in order; If an element of [param values] is another 2-element array, it'll be interpreted as a key-value pair.
[b]Note:[/b] In C#, it's recommended to [url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/tokens/interpolated]interpolate strings with "$"[/url], instead.
If the string is a valid file name or path, returns the file extension without the leading period ([code].[/code]). Otherwise, returns an empty string.
Splits the string using a [param delimiter] and returns the substring at index [param slice]. Returns an empty string if the [param slice] does not exist.
This is faster than [method split], if you only need one substring.
Splits the string using a Unicode character with code [param delimiter] and returns the substring at index [param slice]. Returns an empty string if the [param slice] does not exist.
This is faster than [method split], if you only need one substring.
[b]Note:[/b] Strings with equal hash values are [i]not[/i] guaranteed to be the same, as a result of hash collisions. On the contrary, strings with different hash values are guaranteed to be different.
Converts the string representing a hexadecimal number into an [int]. The string may be optionally prefixed with [code]"0x"[/code], and an additional [code]-[/code] prefix for negative numbers.
Returns [code]true[/code] if the string is a path to a file or directory, and its starting point is explicitly defined. This method is the opposite of [method is_relative_path].
This includes all paths starting with [code]"res://"[/code], [code]"user://"[/code], [code]"C:\"[/code], [code]"/"[/code], etc.
Returns [code]true[/code] if the string is a path, and its starting point is dependent on context. The path could begin from the current directory, or the current [Node] (if the string is derived from a [NodePath]), and may sometimes be prefixed with [code]"./"[/code]. This method is the opposite of [method is_absolute_path].
Returns [code]true[/code] if this string does not contain characters that are not allowed in file names ([code]:[/code] [code]/[/code] [code]\[/code] [code]?[/code] [code]*[/code] [code]"[/code] [code]|[/code] [code]%[/code] [code]<[/code] [code]>[/code]).
Returns [code]true[/code] if this string represents a valid floating-point number. A valid float may contain only digits, one decimal point ([code].[/code]), and the exponent letter ([code]e[/code]). It may also be prefixed with a positive ([code]+[/code]) or negative ([code]-[/code]) sign. Any valid integer is also a valid float (see [method is_valid_int]). See also [method to_float].
Returns [code]true[/code] if this string is a valid hexadecimal number. A valid hexadecimal number only contains digits or letters [code]A[/code] to [code]F[/code] (either uppercase or lowercase), and may be prefixed with a positive ([code]+[/code]) or negative ([code]-[/code]) sign.
If [param with_prefix] is [code]true[/code], the hexadecimal number needs to prefixed by [code]"0x"[/code] to be considered valid.
[codeblock]
print("A08E".is_valid_hex_number()) # Prints true
print("-AbCdEf".is_valid_hex_number()) # Prints true
print("2.5".is_valid_hex_number()) # Prints false
print("0xDEADC0DE".is_valid_hex_number(true)) # Prints true
Returns [code]true[/code] if this string is a valid color in hexadecimal HTML notation. The string must be a hexadecimal value (see [method is_valid_hex_number]) of either 3, 4, 6 or 8 digits, and may be prefixed by a hash sign ([code]#[/code]). Other HTML notations for colors, such as names or [code]hsl()[/code], are not considered valid. See also [method Color.html].
Returns [code]true[/code] if this string is a valid identifier. A valid identifier may contain only letters, digits and underscores ([code]_[/code]), and the first character may not be a digit.
Returns [code]true[/code] if this string represents a valid integer. A valid integer only contains digits, and may be prefixed with a positive ([code]+[/code]) or negative ([code]-[/code]) sign. See also [method to_int].
Returns [code]true[/code] if this string represents a well-formatted IPv4 or IPv6 address. This method considers [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserved_IP_addresses]reserved IP addresses[/url] such as [code]"0.0.0.0"[/code] and [code]"ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff"[/code] as valid.
Returns the concatenation of [param parts]' elements, with each element separated by the string calling this method. This method is the opposite of [method split].
Returns a copy of the string with special characters escaped using the JSON standard. Because it closely matches the C standard, it is possible to use [method c_unescape] to unescape the string, if necessary.
Returns the first [param length] characters from the beginning of the string. If [param length] is negative, strips the last [param length] characters from the string's end.
Formats the string to be at least [param min_length] long by adding [param character]s to the left of the string, if necessary. See also [method rpad].
Does a simple expression match (also called "glob" or "globbing"), where [code]*[/code] matches zero or more arbitrary characters and [code]?[/code] matches any single character except a period ([code].[/code]). An empty string or empty expression always evaluates to [code]false[/code].
Does a simple [b]case-insensitive[/b] expression match, where [code]*[/code] matches zero or more arbitrary characters and [code]?[/code] matches any single character except a period ([code].[/code]). An empty string or empty expression always evaluates to [code]false[/code].
Performs a [b]case-sensitive[/b], [i]natural order[/i] comparison to another string. Returns [code]-1[/code] if less than, [code]1[/code] if greater than, or [code]0[/code] if equal. "Less than" or "greater than" are determined by the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters]Unicode code points[/url] of each string, which roughly matches the alphabetical order.
When used for sorting, natural order comparison orders sequences of numbers by the combined value of each digit as is often expected, instead of the single digit's value. A sorted sequence of numbered strings will be [code]["1", "2", "3", ...][/code], not [code]["1", "10", "2", "3", ...][/code].
With different string lengths, returns [code]1[/code] if this string is longer than the [param to] string, or [code]-1[/code] if shorter. Note that the length of empty strings is [i]always[/i] [code]0[/code].
To get a [bool] result from a string comparison, use the [code]==[/code] operator instead. See also [method naturalnocasecmp_to], [method filecasecmp_to], and [method nocasecmp_to].
Performs a [b]case-insensitive[/b], [i]natural order[/i] comparison to another string. Returns [code]-1[/code] if less than, [code]1[/code] if greater than, or [code]0[/code] if equal. "Less than" or "greater than" are determined by the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters]Unicode code points[/url] of each string, which roughly matches the alphabetical order. Internally, lowercase characters are converted to uppercase for the comparison.
When used for sorting, natural order comparison orders sequences of numbers by the combined value of each digit as is often expected, instead of the single digit's value. A sorted sequence of numbered strings will be [code]["1", "2", "3", ...][/code], not [code]["1", "10", "2", "3", ...][/code].
With different string lengths, returns [code]1[/code] if this string is longer than the [param to] string, or [code]-1[/code] if shorter. Note that the length of empty strings is [i]always[/i] [code]0[/code].
To get a [bool] result from a string comparison, use the [code]==[/code] operator instead. See also [method naturalcasecmp_to], [method filenocasecmp_to], and [method casecmp_to].
Performs a [b]case-insensitive[/b] comparison to another string. Returns [code]-1[/code] if less than, [code]1[/code] if greater than, or [code]0[/code] if equal. "Less than" or "greater than" are determined by the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters]Unicode code points[/url] of each string, which roughly matches the alphabetical order. Internally, lowercase characters are converted to uppercase for the comparison.
With different string lengths, returns [code]1[/code] if this string is longer than the [param to] string, or [code]-1[/code] if shorter. Note that the length of empty strings is [i]always[/i] [code]0[/code].
To get a [bool] result from a string comparison, use the [code]==[/code] operator instead. See also [method casecmp_to], [method filenocasecmp_to], and [method naturalnocasecmp_to].
Returns the copy of this string in reverse order. This operation works on unicode codepoints, rather than sequences of codepoints, and may break things like compound letters or emojis.
Returns the index of the [b]last[/b] occurrence of [param what] in this string, or [code]-1[/code] if there are none. The search's start can be specified with [param from], continuing to the beginning of the string. This method is the reverse of [method find].
Returns the index of the [b]last[/b] [b]case-insensitive[/b] occurrence of [param what] in this string, or [code]-1[/code] if there are none. The starting search index can be specified with [param from], continuing to the beginning of the string. This method is the reverse of [method findn].
Returns the last [param length] characters from the end of the string. If [param length] is negative, strips the first [param length] characters from the string's beginning.
Formats the string to be at least [param min_length] long, by adding [param character]s to the right of the string, if necessary. See also [method lpad].
Splits the string using a [param delimiter] and returns an array of the substrings, starting from the end of the string. The splits in the returned array appear in the same order as the original string. If [param delimiter] is an empty string, each substring will be a single character.
If [param allow_empty] is [code]false[/code], empty strings between adjacent delimiters are excluded from the array.
If [param maxsplit] is greater than [code]0[/code], the number of splits may not exceed [param maxsplit]. By default, the entire string is split, which is mostly identical to [method split].
Returns the similarity index ([url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8rensen%E2%80%93Dice_coefficient]Sorensen-Dice coefficient[/url]) of this string compared to another. A result of [code]1.0[/code] means totally similar, while [code]0.0[/code] means totally dissimilar.
If the string is a valid file path, converts the string into a canonical path. This is the shortest possible path, without [code]"./"[/code], and all the unnecessary [code]".."[/code] and [code]"/"[/code].
[codeblock]
var simple_path = "./path/to///../file".simplify_path()
Splits the string using a [param delimiter] and returns an array of the substrings. If [param delimiter] is an empty string, each substring will be a single character. This method is the opposite of [method join].
If [param allow_empty] is [code]false[/code], empty strings between adjacent delimiters are excluded from the array.
If [param maxsplit] is greater than [code]0[/code], the number of splits may not exceed [param maxsplit]. By default, the entire string is split.
[b]Note:[/b] If you only need one substring from the array, consider using [method get_slice] which is faster. If you need to split strings with more complex rules, use the [RegEx] class instead.
Strips all non-printable characters from the beginning and the end of the string. These include spaces, tabulations ([code]\t[/code]), and newlines ([code]\n[/code] [code]\r[/code]).
If [param left] is [code]false[/code], ignores the string's beginning. Likewise, if [param right] is [code]false[/code], ignores the string's end.
Strips all escape characters from the string. These include all non-printable control characters of the first page of the ASCII table (values from 0 to 31), such as tabulation ([code]\t[/code]) and newline ([code]\n[/code], [code]\r[/code]) characters, but [i]not[/i] spaces.
Returns part of the string from the position [param from] with length [param len]. If [param len] is [code]-1[/code] (as by default), returns the rest of the string starting from the given position.
Converts the string to an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII]ASCII[/url]/Latin-1 encoded [PackedByteArray]. This method is slightly faster than [method to_utf8_buffer], but replaces all unsupported characters with spaces.
Converts the string representing a decimal number into a [float]. This method stops on the first non-number character, except the first decimal point ([code].[/code]) and the exponent letter ([code]e[/code]). See also [method is_valid_float].
Converts the string representing an integer number into an [int]. This method removes any non-number character and stops at the first decimal point ([code].[/code]). See also [method is_valid_int].
Converts the string to a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8]UTF-8[/url] encoded [PackedByteArray]. This method is slightly slower than [method to_ascii_buffer], but supports all UTF-8 characters. For most cases, prefer using this method.
Converts the string to a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_character]wide character[/url] ([code]wchar_t[/code], UTF-16 on Windows, UTF-32 on other platforms) encoded [PackedByteArray].
Returns a copy of the string with all characters that are not allowed in [member Node.name] ([code].[/code] [code]:[/code] [code]@[/code] [code]/[/code] [code]"[/code] [code]%[/code]) replaced with underscores.
Returns a copy of the string with special characters escaped using the XML standard. If [param escape_quotes] is [code]true[/code], the single quote ([code]'[/code]) and double quote ([code]"[/code]) characters are also escaped.
</description>
</method>
<methodname="xml_unescape"qualifiers="const">
<returntype="String"/>
<description>
Returns a copy of the string with escaped characters replaced by their meanings according to the XML standard.
Returns [code]true[/code] if the [StringName] and [param right] do not refer to the same name. Comparisons between [StringName]s are much faster than regular [String] comparisons.
Formats the [StringName], replacing the placeholders with one or more parameters, returning a [String]. To pass multiple parameters, [param right] needs to be an [Array].
For more information, see the [url=$DOCS_URL/tutorials/scripting/gdscript/gdscript_format_string.html]GDScript format strings[/url] tutorial.
[b]Note:[/b] In C#, this operator is not available. Instead, see [url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/tokens/interpolated]how to interpolate strings with "$"[/url].
Returns [code]true[/code] if the left [StringName]'s pointer comes before [param right]. Note that this will not match their [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters]Unicode order[/url].
Returns [code]true[/code] if the left [StringName]'s pointer comes before [param right] or if they are the same. Note that this will not match their [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters]Unicode order[/url].
Returns [code]true[/code] if the [StringName] and [param right] refer to the same name. Comparisons between [StringName]s are much faster than regular [String] comparisons.
Returns [code]true[/code] if the left [StringName]'s pointer comes after [param right]. Note that this will not match their [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters]Unicode order[/url].
Returns [code]true[/code] if the left [StringName]'s pointer comes after [param right] or if they are the same. Note that this will not match their [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters]Unicode order[/url].
