In order to compare Strings for equality, you should use the String object’s equals or equalsIgnoreCase methods.

For example, the following snippet will determine if the two instances of String are equal on all characters:

String firstString = "Test123";
String secondString = "Test" + 123;

if (firstString.equals(secondString)) {
   // Both Strings have the same content.
}

Live demo

This example will compare them, independent of their case:

String firstString = "Test123";
String secondString = "TEST123";

if (firstString.equalsIgnoreCase(secondString)) {
    // Both Strings are equal, ignoring the case of the individual characters.
}

Live demo

Note that equalsIgnoreCase does not let you specify a Locale. For instance, if you compare the two words "Taki" and "TAKI" in English they are equal; however, in Turkish they are different (in Turkish, the lowercase I is ı). For cases like this, converting both strings to lowercase (or uppercase) with Locale and then comparing with equals is the solution.

String firstString = "Taki";
String secondString = "TAKI";

System.out.println(firstString.equalsIgnoreCase(secondString)); //prints true

Locale locale = Locale.forLanguageTag("tr-TR");

System.out.println(firstString.toLowerCase(locale).equals(
                   secondString.toLowerCase(locale))); //prints false

Live demo

Do not use the == operator to compare Strings

Unless you can guarantee that all strings have been interned (see below), you should not use the == or != operators to compare Strings. These operators actually test references, and since multiple String objects can represent the same String, this is liable to give the wrong answer.

Instead, use the String.equals(Object) method, which will compare the String objects based on their values. For a detailed explanation, please refer to http://stackoverflow.com/documentation/java/4388/java-pitfalls/16290/pitfall-using-to-compare-strings.

Comparing Strings in a switch statement

As of Java 1.7, it is possible to compare a String variable to literals in a switch statement. Make sure that the String is not null, otherwise it will always throw a NullPointerException. Values are compared using String.equals, i.e. case sensitive.

String stringToSwitch = "A";

switch (stringToSwitch) {
    case "a":
        System.out.println("a");
        break;
    case "A":
        System.out.println("A"); //the code goes here
        break;
    case "B":
        System.out.println("B");
        break;
    default:
        break;
}

Live demo

Comparing Strings with constant values

When comparing a String to a constant value, you can put the constant value on the left side of equals to ensure that you won’t get a NullPointerException if the other String is null.

"baz".equals(foo)

While foo.equals("baz") will throw a NullPointerException if foo is null, "baz".equals(foo) will evaluate to false.

A more readable alternative is to use Objects.equals(), which does a null check on both parameters: Objects.equals(foo, "baz").

(Note: It is debatable as to whether it is better to avoid NullPointerExceptions in general, or let them happen and then fix the root cause; see here and here. Certainly, calling the avoidance strategy “best practice” is not justifiable.)

String orderings

The String class implements Comparable<String> with the String.compareTo method (as described at the start of this example). This makes the natural ordering of String objects case-sensitive order. The String class provide a Comparator<String> constant called CASE_INSENSITIVE_ORDER suitable for case-insensitive sorting.

Comparing with interned Strings

The Java Language Specification (JLS 3.10.6) states the following:

“Moreover, a string literal always refers to the same instance of class String. This is because string literals - or, more generally, strings that are the values of constant expressions - are interned so as to share unique instances, using the method String.intern.”

This means it is safe to compare references to two string literals using ==. Moreover, the same is true for references to String objects that have been produced using the String.intern() method.

For example:

String strObj = new String("Hello!");
String str = "Hello!";

// The two string references point two strings that are equal
if (strObj.equals(str)) {
    System.out.println("The strings are equal");
}

// The two string references do not point to the same object
if (strObj != str) {
    System.out.println("The strings are not the same object");
}

// If we intern a string that is equal to a given literal, the result is
// a string that has the same reference as the literal.
String internedStr = strObj.intern();

if (internedStr == str) {
    System.out.println("The interned string and the literal are the same object");
}

Behind the scenes, the interning mechanism maintains a hash table that contains all interned strings that are still reachable. When you call intern() on a String, the method looks up the object in the hash table:

• If the string is found, then that value is returned as the interned string.
• Otherwise, a copy of the string is added to the hash table and that string is returned as the interned string.

It is possible to use interning to allow strings to be compared using ==. However, there are significant problems with doing this; see http://stackoverflow.com/documentation/java/5455/java-pitfalls-performance-issues/23991/pitfall-interning-strings-so-that-you-can-use-is-a-bad-idea#t=201610101338294726756 for details. It is not recommended in most cases.