Home > Archive > Java Help > January 2007 > Question: Difference between String.equals and String.compareTo????
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Question: Difference between String.equals and String.compareTo????
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| Hi All
I was not clear about two methods in String Class:
equals and compareTo
Anybody give a hint?
Thanks a lot.
Steven
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| Matt Humphrey 2007-01-23, 7:30 pm |
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"QQ" <chaojiang.au@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1169592330.288743.226330@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Hi All
>
> I was not clear about two methods in String Class:
> equals and compareTo
>
> Anybody give a hint?
The javadocs spell these out pretty clearly--it's best to read what they say
first. Briefly, equals returns true when the strings have the same
contents. compareTo returns -1 if the first occurs lexigraphically before
the second, +1 if the second is before the first and 0 if they are equal.
Matt Humphrey
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| Hey All
Thanks for that, maybe my question is not quite clear.
I understand the java API stuff, just wonderring am I free to use
either to do string comparation?
e.g. if I just want to check whether two string equals or not, I can
call either method to do it, correct?
Thanks a lot.
Steven
On Jan 24, 9:45 am, "QQ" <chaojiang...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All
>
> I was not clear about two methods in String Class:
> equals and compareTo
>
> Anybody give a hint?
>
> Thanks a lot.
> Steven
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| (top-posting reordered.)
QQ wrote:
QQ wrote:[color=darkred]
> Thanks for that, maybe my question is not quite clear.
>
> I understand the java API stuff, just wonderring am I free to use
> either to do string comparation?
>
> e.g. if I just want to check whether two string equals or not, I can
> call either method to do it, correct?
Yes.
- Lew
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| Eric Sosman 2007-01-26, 10:06 pm |
| QQ wrote:
> Hey All
>
> Thanks for that, maybe my question is not quite clear.
>
> I understand the java API stuff, just wonderring am I free to use
> either to do string comparation?
>
> e.g. if I just want to check whether two string equals or not, I can
> call either method to do it, correct?
Yes. `s1.equals(s2)' and `s1.compareTo(s2)==0' are
almost equivalent. "Almost" because they behave differently
if s2 is null or is not a String: equals returns false but
compareTo throws an exception.
--
Eric Sosman
esosman@acm-dot-org.invalid
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