Java 25 (LTS) reference · String Methods

Java String compareTo() Method

Compare two strings alphabetically: negative if this comes first, 0 if equal, positive if it comes after.

Java 25 (LTS) Since Java 1.0

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Syntax

string.compareTo(other)

Parameters

Parameter	Description
`other` String	The string to compare with.

Return value

An int.

Examples

Alphabetical order

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("apple".compareTo("banana") < 0);
        System.out.println("pear".compareTo("pear"));
        System.out.println("Zebra".compareTo("apple") < 0);  // upper case sorts before lower case
    }
}

Output

true
0
true

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Sort ignoring case

import java.util.*;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<String> names = new ArrayList<>(List.of("cleo", "Ana", "ben"));
        names.sort(String::compareToIgnoreCase);
        System.out.println(names);
    }
}