difference between equal and compare methods of String class

[vijay shanker]

hi friends,

i just got to be in thinking, if there is any difference between those to above written methods. as i am not able to understand due to lack of concentration today.

can any one please simplify the difference between both.

cheers

vijay shanker

[Sagar Rohankar]

contains() checks for a sub string , where as equals() checks for whole string , and other difference is , contains() takes object of CharSequence class where as equals() takes Object as its parameter !

[Ankit Garg]

Originally posted by Sagar Rohankar:
contains() checks for a sub string , where as equals() checks for whole string , and other difference is , contains() takes object of CharSequence class where as equals() takes Object as its parameter !

He was actually trying to ask for compareTo and equals(I think)....

Well the equals method finds that two string are equal or not. If they are equal, then true is returned otherwise false is returned.

In case of compareTo method it checks whether two strings are equal. If they are equal, then 0 is returned. If the strings are not equal then 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(taken from the documentation)

This means that if you do this "a".compareTo("b"); then the result will be -1. if you do this "a".compareTo("c"); then the result will be -2. if you do this "a".compareTo("z"); then the result will be -25. if you do this "z".compareTo("y"); then the result will be 1. if you do this "z".compareTo("a"); then the result will be 25.

I think you will get it.....

[Joanne Neal]

The compareTo method is there because String implements the Comparable interface. It is intended to indicate whether one String is less than, equal to or greater than another String. It is mainly used by sorting algorithms to determine the order of two objects.

[Sagar Rohankar]

ohh, sorry I think I need a new sets of spectacles, What Ankit says is fine,

String#equals() - checks two strings equality from start to end .

String#compareTo() - checks the two strings character sequence (lexicography ) , one by one, where mismatch happened its return the difference int value .

[Campbell Ritchie]

Ankit Garg is spot on. You will find all sorts of useful information about that if you

Read about the Object class

Read about the Comparable<T> interface

Search the Sun website; there is a sample chapter from Joshua Bloch's Effective Java there somewhere which tells more about equals, but probably not compareTo

[Rob Spoor]

vijay,

you are correct in thinking that these two methods are quite related. Although it hasn't been done, equals could have been implemented using compareTo:

public boolean equals(Object o)
{
    if (this == anObject)
    {
        return true;
    }
    if (o instanceof String)
    {
        String s = (String)o;
        return compareTo(s) == 0;
    }
    return false;
}

Also, s1.equals(s2) == true implies s1.compareTo(s2) == 0 (and vice versa), and s1.equals(s2) == false implies s1.compareTo(s2) != 0 (and vice versa).

However, and this is important, this does not have to be the case for all classes. It is for String, but no rule prohibits different natural orders for other classes.

[sachin]

string1.equals(string2) and string1.compareTo(string2)==0 are same.

But difference in behaviour is when string2 is null
then 'equals' returns false but 'compareTo' throws an exception.

[Campbell Ritchie]

"java sac" please read the important administrative private message I have just sent you.

CR

[Campbell Ritchie]

"sachin" I am afraid that is no better.

[Campbell Ritchie]

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