CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javastringcompare
Ildar Tsunvazov
Ildar Tsunvazov

Reputation: 9

Boolean comparisons on Strings

I'm learning java now. I have a book which is up to SE6 date. Now there is an exercise that asks me:

Write a method that takes two String arguments and uses all boolean comparisons to compare the two Strings and print the results. In main(); call your method with some different String objects.

When I tried:

public static void compare(String a, String b){
    System.out.println(a>b);
}

I got error said > operator is not valid for type String

Now my question is - if the book is out of date and something changed since, or am I misunderstanding something in the task?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 192

Answers (2)

TechieTikki
TechieTikki

Reputation: 11

You cannot use relational operators( <, <=, >,>=) on Strings in Java. Java does not rely on operator overloading.

You can use compareTo method for comparing Strings: The value 0 if the argument is a string lexicographically equal to this string; a value less than 0 if the argument is a string lexicographically greater than this string; and a value greater than 0 if the argument is a string lexicographically less than this string.

Upvotes: 0

Tomasz R
Tomasz R

Reputation: 298

I guess this task was meant for you to provide your own implementation of string comparison, so for example:

for (int i = 0; i < Math.max(a.length(), b.lentgh(); i++) {
  if (a[i] < b[i]) {
    System.out.println("a < b");
    return;
  }
  // ...

Strings are objects, not primitives, and cannot be compared with comparison operators. There is a compareTo(String anotherString) method build into String which returns a number depending on which string is lexically greater.

Upvotes: 1

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