For Online Judges problems that does not allow StringBuilder or StringBuffer, you can do it in place using char[] as following:

public static String reverse(String input){
    char[] in = input.toCharArray();
    int begin=0;
    int end=in.length-1;
    char temp;
    while(end>begin){
        temp = in[begin];
        in[begin]=in[end];
        in[end] = temp;
        end--;
        begin++;
    }
    return new String(in);
}

public static String reverseIt(String source) {
    int i, len = source.length();
    StringBuilder dest = new StringBuilder(len);

    for (i = (len - 1); i >= 0; i--){
        dest.append(source.charAt(i));
    }

    return dest.toString();
}

String string="whatever";
String reverse = new StringBuffer(string).reverse().toString();
System.out.println(reverse);

I am doing this by using the following two ways:

Reverse string by CHARACTERS:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Using traditional approach
    String result="";
    for(int i=string.length()-1; i>=0; i--) {
        result = result + string.charAt(i);
    }
    System.out.println(result);

    // Using StringBuffer class
    StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer(string);
    System.out.println(buffer.reverse());    
}

Reverse string by WORDS:

public static void reverseStringByWords(String string) {
    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    String[] words = string.split(" ");

    for (int j = words.length-1; j >= 0; j--) {
        stringBuilder.append(words[j]).append(' ');
    }
    System.out.println("Reverse words: " + stringBuilder);
}

Take a look at the Java 6 API under StringBuffer

String s = "sample";
String result = new StringBuffer(s).reverse().toString();

Here is an example using recursion:

public void reverseString() {
    String alphabet = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
    String reverseAlphabet = reverse(alphabet, alphabet.length()-1);
}

String reverse(String stringToReverse, int index){
    if(index == 0){
        return stringToReverse.charAt(0) + "";
    }

    char letter = stringToReverse.charAt(index);
    return letter + reverse(stringToReverse, index-1);
}

Here is a low level solution:

import java.util.Scanner;

public class class1 {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
        String inpStr = in.nextLine();
        System.out.println("Original String :" + inpStr);
        char temp;
        char[] arr = inpStr.toCharArray();
        int len = arr.length;
        for(int i=0; i<(inpStr.length())/2; i++,len--){
            temp = arr[i];
            arr[i] = arr[len-1];
            arr[len-1] = temp;
        }

        System.out.println("Reverse String :" + String.valueOf(arr));
    }
}

I tried, just for fun, by using a Stack. Here my code:

public String reverseString(String s) {
    Stack<Character> stack = new Stack<>();
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
        stack.push(s.charAt(i));
    }
    while (!stack.empty()) {
        sb.append(stack.pop());
    }
    return sb.toString();

}

Since the below method (using XOR) to reverse a string is not listed, I am attaching this method to reverse a string.

The Algorithm is based on :

1.(A XOR B) XOR B = A

2.(A XOR B) XOR A = B

Code snippet:

public class ReverseUsingXOR {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String str = "prateek";
        reverseUsingXOR(str.toCharArray());
    }   

    /*Example:
     * str= prateek;
     * str[low]=p;
     * str[high]=k;
     * str[low]=p^k;
     * str[high]=(p^k)^k =p;
     * str[low]=(p^k)^p=k;
     * 
     * */
    public static void reverseUsingXOR(char[] str) {
        int low = 0;
        int high = str.length - 1;

        while (low < high) {
            str[low] = (char) (str[low] ^ str[high]);
            str[high] = (char) (str[low] ^ str[high]);   
            str[low] = (char) (str[low] ^ str[high]);
            low++;
            high--;
        }

        //display reversed string
        for (int i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
            System.out.print(str[i]);
        }
    }

}

Output:

keetarp

As others have pointed out the preferred way is to use:

new StringBuilder(hi).reverse().toString()

But if you want to implement this by yourself, I'm afraid that the rest of responses have flaws.

The reason is that String represents a list of Unicode points, encoded in a char[] array according to the variable-length encoding: UTF-16.

This means some code points use a single element of the array (one code unit) but others use two of them, so there might be pairs of characters that must be treated as a single unit (consecutive "high" and "low" surrogates).

public static String reverseString(String s) {
    char[] chars = new char[s.length()];
    boolean twoCharCodepoint = false;
    for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
        chars[s.length() - 1 - i] = s.charAt(i);
        if (twoCharCodepoint) {
            swap(chars, s.length() - 1 - i, s.length() - i);
        }
        twoCharCodepoint = !Character.isBmpCodePoint(s.codePointAt(i));
    }
    return new String(chars);
}

private static void swap(char[] array, int i, int j) {
    char temp = array[i];
    array[i] = array[j];
    array[j] = temp;
}

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("C:/temp/reverse-string.txt");
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("Linear B Syllable B008 A: ");
    sb.appendCodePoint(65536); //
    sb.append(".");
    fos.write(sb.toString().getBytes("UTF-16"));
    fos.write("\n".getBytes("UTF-16"));
    fos.write(reverseString(sb.toString()).getBytes("UTF-16"));
}

Using charAt() method

    String name = "gaurav";
    String reversedString = "";
    
    for(int i = name.length()-1; i>=0; i--){
      reversedString = reversedString + name.charAt(i);
    }
    System.out.println(reversedString);

Using toCharArray() method

String name = "gaurav";
    char [] stringCharArray = name.toCharArray();
    String reversedString = "";
    
    for(int i = stringCharArray.length-1; i>=0; i--) {
      reversedString = reversedString + stringCharArray[i];
    }
    System.out.println(reversedString);

Using reverse() method of the Stringbuilder

    String name = "gaurav";
    
    String reversedString = new StringBuilder(name).reverse().toString();
    
    System.out.println(reversedString);

Check

It is very simple in minimum code of lines

public class ReverseString {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String s1 = "neelendra";
        for(int i=s1.length()-1;i>=0;i--)
            {
                System.out.print(s1.charAt(i));
            }
    }
}

This did the trick for me

public static void main(String[] args) {

    String text = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";

    for (int i = (text.length() - 1); i >= 0; i--) {
        System.out.print(text.charAt(i));
    }
}

1. Using Character Array:

public String reverseString(String inputString) {
    char[] inputStringArray = inputString.toCharArray();
    String reverseString = "";
    for (int i = inputStringArray.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
        reverseString += inputStringArray[i];
    }
    return reverseString;
}

2. Using StringBuilder:

public String reverseString(String inputString) {
    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder(inputString);
    stringBuilder = stringBuilder.reverse();
    return stringBuilder.toString();
}

OR

return new StringBuilder(inputString).reverse().toString();

System.out.print("Please enter your name: ");
String name = keyboard.nextLine();

String reverse = new StringBuffer(name).reverse().toString();
String rev = reverse.toLowerCase();
System.out.println(rev);

I used this method to turn names backwards and into lower case.

One natural way to reverse a String is to use a StringTokenizer and a stack. Stack is a class that implements an easy-to-use last-in, first-out (LIFO) stack of objects.

String s = "Hello My name is Sufiyan";

Put it in the stack frontwards

Stack<String> myStack = new Stack<>();
StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(s);
while (st.hasMoreTokens()) {
     myStack.push(st.nextToken());
}

Print the stack backwards

System.out.print('"' + s + '"' + " backwards by word is:\n\t\"");
while (!myStack.empty()) {
  System.out.print(myStack.pop());
  System.out.print(' ');
}

System.out.println('"');

    public String reverse(String s) {

        String reversedString = "";
        for(int i=s.length(); i>0; i--) {
            reversedString += s.charAt(i-1);
        }   

        return reversedString;
    }

public class Test {

public static void main(String args[]) {
   StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer("Game Plan");
   buffer.reverse();
   System.out.println(buffer);
 }  
}

All above solution is too good but here I am making reverse string using recursive programming.

This is helpful for who is looking recursive way of doing reverse string.

public class ReversString {

public static void main(String args[]) {
    char s[] = "Dhiral Pandya".toCharArray();
    String r = new String(reverse(0, s));
    System.out.println(r);
}

public static char[] reverse(int i, char source[]) {

    if (source.length / 2 == i) {
        return source;
    }

    char t = source[i];
    source[i] = source[source.length - 1 - i];
    source[source.length - 1 - i] = t;

    i++;
    return reverse(i, source);

}

}

You can also try this:

public class StringReverse {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String str = "Dogs hates cats";
        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(str);
        System.out.println(sb.reverse());
    }
}

Procedure :

We can use split() to split the string .Then use reverse loop and add the characters.