I'm curious why the String.indexOf is returning a 0 (instead of -1) when asking for the index of an empty string within a string. The Javadocs only say this method returns the index in this String of the specified string, -1 if the string isn't found. System.out.println("FOO".indexOf("")); // outputs 0 wtf!!! System.out.println("FOO".indexOf("bar")); // outputs -1 as expected System.out.println("FOO".indexOf("F")); // outputs 0 as expected System.out.println("".indexOf("")); // outputs 0 as expected, I think