compareTo

[abalfazl hossein]

what is the base in order to compare strings?

The compareTo method is used when we need to determine the order of Strings lexicographically

http://www.javabeginner.com/learn-java/java-string-comparison

What does it mean?

For example: "this is my cat"

"green road"

What is the base in order to compare these sentences?

[Frederick Winsnes]

what is the base in order to compare strings?

What do you mean with base?

[abalfazl hossein]

How two strings compare?
How a string be greater?

[Wouter Oet]

Have you read the documentation? Because there it is mentioned in the second sentence.

[Frederick Winsnes]

abalfazl hossein wrote:How two strings compare?
How a string be greater?

String string1 = "aa";
String string2 = "bb";

string1.compareTo(string2); //Returns a negative integer because string1 is before strin2 in the alphabet
string2.compareTo(string1); //Returns a positive integer for the same reason
string1.compareTo(string1); //Returns 0 because they are the same

[prem pillai]

If not satisfied by java doc , you can have a look at the below link to understand what is lexicographical order !!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicographical_order

[abalfazl hossein]

4. String a = “hello”;
5. String b = “goodbye”;
6. String c= “Hello”;
7.
8. System.out.println(a.compareTo(b));
9. System.out.println(c.compareTo(b));
10. System.out.println(a.compareTo(c));
11. System.out.println(a.compareTo(a));

The output of the statements is
1
-31
32
0
The fi rst int displayed from line 8 is positive because the string “ hello ” is greater than
“ goodbye “ . The actual value of the positive number is normally irrelevant, and for String
objects it represents the difference between the fi rst unequal characters between the two
strings. Line 9 compares “ Hello ” to “ goodbye ” and outputs - 31 because H is uppercase and
appears before all lowercase letters. Therefore, “ Hello ” is less than “ goodbye “ . Similarly,
“ hello ” is greater than “ Hello ” on line 10, which outputs 32 . Line 11 outputs 0 because
the two strings are equal

From:

Sun Certified Programmer
for Java® Platform, SE6