Java string comparison sample code examples

We can compare Strings in Java using the compareTo() method and the == operator.

comapareTo() method: The compareTo() method compares two strings lexicographically. 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 == operator: You can compare two strings using == operator. But, it compares references to the given variables, not values.

Example

 Live Demo

import java.lang.*;
public class StringDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      String str1 = "tutorials", str2 = "point";
      // comparing str1 and str2
      int retval = str1.compareTo(str2);
      System.out.println(str1==str2);
     
      // prints the return value of the comparison
      if (retval < 0) {
      System.out.println("str1 is greater than str2");
      } else if (retval == 0) {
         System.out.println("str1 is equal to str2");
      } else {
         System.out.println("str1 is less than str2");
      }
   }
}

Output

false
str1 is less than str2