哇!我不敢相信这里的错误信息。不可变的字符串与安全性无关。如果某人已经可以访问正在运行的应用程序中的对象(如果你试图防止某人在你的应用程序中“入侵”字符串，就必须假设这一点)，那么他们肯定有很多其他可用的黑客机会。

String的不可变性解决了线程问题，这是一个相当新颖的想法。嗯…我有一个被两个不同线程改变的对象。我如何解决这个问题?同步对对象的访问?Naawww……让我们不要让任何人改变对象——这将解决我们所有混乱的并发问题!事实上，让我们让所有对象都是不可变的，然后我们就可以从Java语言中删除synchronized结构。

The real reason (pointed out by others above) is memory optimization. It is quite common in any application for the same string literal to be used repeatedly. It is so common, in fact, that decades ago, many compilers made the optimization of storing only a single instance of a String literal. The drawback of this optimization is that runtime code that modifies a String literal introduces a problem because it is modifying the instance for all other code that shares it. For example, it would be not good for a function somewhere in an application to change the String literal "dog" to "cat". A printf("dog") would result in "cat" being written to stdout. For that reason, there needed to be a way of guarding against code that attempts to change String literals (i. e., make them immutable). Some compilers (with support from the OS) would accomplish this by placing String literal into a special readonly memory segment that would cause a memory fault if a write attempt was made.

在Java中，这被称为实习。这里的Java编译器只是遵循了编译器几十年来所做的标准内存优化。为了解决这些String字面值在运行时被修改的相同问题，Java简单地使String类不可变(即，不提供允许您更改String内容的setter)。如果字符串字面量没有发生转换，字符串就不必是不可变的。

Java中的字符串并不是真正不可变的，您可以使用反射和或类加载来更改它们的值。你不应该依赖这个属性来保证安全。 有关示例请参见:Java中的魔术

在c++中使用可变字符串的决定会导致很多问题，请参阅Kelvin Henney关于疯牛病的出色文章。

COW =写入时拷贝。

线程安全和性能。如果一个字符串不能被修改，那么在多个线程之间传递引用是安全且快速的。如果字符串是可变的，则总是必须将字符串的所有字节复制到新实例，或者提供同步。一个典型的应用程序在每次需要修改字符串时将读取字符串100次。参见维基百科关于不变性的内容。

根据Effective Java，第4章，第73页，第二版:

"There are many good reasons for this: Immutable classes are easier to design, implement, and use than mutable classes. They are less prone to error and are more secure. [...] "Immutable objects are simple. An immutable object can be in exactly one state, the state in which it was created. If you make sure that all constructors establish class invariants, then it is guaranteed that these invariants will remain true for all time, with no effort on your part. [...] Immutable objects are inherently thread-safe; they require no synchronization. They cannot be corrupted by multiple threads accessing them concurrently. This is far and away the easiest approach to achieving thread safety. In fact, no thread can ever observe any effect of another thread on an immutable object. Therefore, immutable objects can be shared freely [...]

同一章的其他要点:

不仅可以共享不可变对象，还可以共享它们的内部结构。 […] 不可变对象为其他对象提供了很好的构建块，无论是可变的还是不可变的。 […] 不可变类的唯一缺点是，它们需要为每个不同的值提供一个单独的对象。

几乎每条规则都有例外:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace Guess
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            const string str = "ABC";

            Console.WriteLine(str);
            Console.WriteLine(str.GetHashCode());

            var handle = GCHandle.Alloc(str, GCHandleType.Pinned);

            try
            {
                Marshal.WriteInt16(handle.AddrOfPinnedObject(), 4, 'Z');

                Console.WriteLine(str);
                Console.WriteLine(str.GetHashCode());
            }
            finally
            {
                handle.Free();
            }
        }
    }
}