Compare Strings - A Java Code Example

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When comparing strings in Java you can either use the compareTo() method which the String class implements through the Comparable interface, or the equals() method which is declared in the Object class.
Since the String class is derived from the Object class (like every class is) any of the methods can be used when working with strings in Java.
In this code example we use the equals() method. Note that the method is case sensitive so if you want to make a case insensitive comparison you'll need to use the method equalsIgnoreCase().

/**
* Main.java
*
* @author www.javadb.com
*/
public class Main {

    /**
     * Compare strings
     */
    public void compareStrings() {

        String str1 = new String("JAVA");
        String str2 = new String("java");

        //true
        System.out.println( str1.equals("JAVAA") );

        //false
        System.out.println( str1.equals(str2) );

        //true
        System.out.println( str1.equalsIgnoreCase(str2) );

    }

    /**
     * Starts the program
     *
     * @param args the command line arguments
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Main().compareStrings();
    }
}

The output from the code above is:

true
false
true

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