How do I compare strings in Java?

You can compare two Strings in Java using the compareTo() method, equals() method or == operator.

The compareTo() method compares two strings. The comparison is based on the Unicode value of each character in the strings. The character sequence represented by this String object is compared lexicographically to the character sequence represented by the argument string.

•  The result is a negative integer if this String object lexicographically precedes the argument string.
• The result is a positive integer if this String object lexicographically follows the argument string.
•  The result is zero if the strings are equal, compareTo returns 0 exactly when the equals(Object) method would return true.

The equals() method of the String class compares this string to the specified object. The result is true if and only if the argument is not null and is a String object that represents the same sequence of characters as this object.
You can also compare two strings using == operator. But, it compares references of the given variables, not values.