Java String compare. There are three ways to compare string in java: Use equalsIgnoreCase() method to check equal strings in case-insensitive manner. The Java equals() method compares two string objects, the equality operator == compares two strings, and the compareTo() method returns the number difference between two strings. 2. Java - String equals() Method. Java is a strongly typed language while JavaScript is very weakly typed, adding to its many differences. The second statement simply refers to the same area of memory as s1. It does reference check, typecasting if necessary, create temporary arrays and then use while loop also. Previous Page. The compareTo() method returns an int type value and compares two Strings character by character lexicographically based on a dictionary or natural ordering.. Use equals() method to check the equality of string contents. You should not use == (equality operator) to compare these strings because they compare the reference of the string, i.e. Passing ‘null’ to method is allowed. It will return false. Description. Java String equals() method example In this tutorial, we shall see how to check if two Strings are equal in Java using the method String.equals(String anotherString). It checks the object references, which is not not desirable in most cases. It is much better to use Java’s utility method Objects.equals (or, if you’re not yet on Java 7, Guava’s Objects.equal): return Objects . equals ( firstName , person . Java String Equals method is an instance method that allows comparing two string objects or literal for equality. To compare these strings in Java, we need to use the equals() method of the string. "; String s2 = "CodeGym is the best website for learning Java! Next Page . Do not use '==' operator. Whereas equals() method takes a lot of statements before concluding that string is empty. This method returns 0 if two Strings are equal or if both are null, a negative number if the first String comes before the argument, and a number greater than zero if the first String comes after the argument String. And any String with length 0 is always going to be empty string. "; s2 points to the same place as s1. Advertisements. 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. The first statement creates a new string in the string pool. String comparison is a crucial part of working with strings in Java. So, str1.equals(str2) , str1.equals(str3), and str2.equals(str3) will all return true. The equals() method compares two strings, and returns true if the strings are equal, and false if not.. You can check if two strings are equal, by considering case or not considering the case, in your Java application. This method compares this string to the specified object. In Java, .equals() or similar methods are not at all synonymous with the != operator which will only tell you varA != varB if varA and varB are not pointing to the exact same object. Java – Check if two Strings are Equal. The String Equals method is called on the String type object that has to be compared for equality. whether they are the same object or not. String s1 = "CodeGym is the best website for learning Java! So, its lot of waste of CPU cycles to verify a simple condition. It is used in authentication (by equals() method), sorting (by compareTo() method), reference matching (by == operator) etc.. The string object to which the string has to be compared is passed as a parameter to the Equals … The equals() method: The equals method compares the text content or the value of two string variables.If both variables have exact same value, equals() will return true, otherwise it will return false. Tip: Use the compareTo() method to compare two strings lexicographically. Definition and Usage. We can compare string in java on the basis of content and reference.