string vs String

string and String are valid TypeScript types. The following declarations are valid:

let foo: String = 'foo';
let bar: string = 'bar';

Difference

string refers to the JavaScript's primitive types and can be created by using either literals (single or double quotes) or String function (without the new keyword).

The three declarations below create the same string:

const message = 'hello';
const message = 'hello';
const message = String('hello');

We often use typeof variable === 'string' to check if a given variable is a primitive string.

String on the other hand is an object that wraps the primitive string, and used to manipulate strings. We can create an instance of String from the constructor such as new String(...):

const message = new String('hello');

In order to check whether a variable is an instance of String object, we have to use the instanceof operator:

if (variable instanceof String) {
    ...
}

Good to know

Given the declarations at the top of this page, you can assign a String object to a primitive string variable:

let foo: String = 'foo';
let bar: string = 'bar';

foo = bar; // OK

As the time of writing, String is declared as an interface so that the string is treated as a subtype of String. Assigning foo = bar therefore does not cause any problem.

But doing the opposite assignment will throw an error:

// ERROR: Type 'String' is not assignable to type 'string'.
// 'string' is a primitive, but 'String' is a wrapper object.
bar = foo;

Good practice

According to the official TypeScript's Do's and Don'ts, it is recommended to not use Number, String, Boolean, Symbol, or Object.

// Do NOT
const reverse = (s: String): String => {
    ...
}

// Do
const reverse = (s: string): string => {
    ...
}

string.charAt(i) vs string[i]style="width: ___" vs width="___"