CODEWITHSUNDEEP
java
Julio Rodrigues
Julio Rodrigues

Reputation: 3413

Comparing equality of strings, but also only comparing String objects (hard type check)

In the middle of a refactoring, I've noticed that anything (because it's inherited from Object) can be compared using the equals() method, but I want to call a method that only compares Strings, because that would let the compiler stop me if I'm comparing objects of different types.

There's any built-in method in Java that do this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 70

Answers (3)

Alboz
Alboz

Reputation: 1851

@Julio Rodrigues you can use the method contentEquals()

string1.contentEquals(string2)

It's case sensitive, and it's only present in the class String (not inherited from object),.

Upvotes: 1

Joop Eggen
Joop Eggen

Reputation: 109597

Use FindBugs, static code analysis, quite easy; with IDE plugins, with separate GUI app. That will mark such problematic uses and others.

That is a better shot-gun approach: repeatable and finding several issues. Absolute fun.

Upvotes: 0

chiastic-security
chiastic-security

Reputation: 20520

If you need something that returns a boolean, you can write your own static method that takes two String instances and uses .compareTo() or .equals() behind the scenes. If the signature requires Strings, the compiler will enforce it.

public static boolean compareStrings(String a, String b) {
    return a.equals(b);
}

This will throw a NullPointerException if a is null, which may or may not be what you want. It would be easy enough to put in a check.

Upvotes: 1

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