Comparing strings by their alphabetical order

Question

String s1 = \"Project\";
String s2 = \"Sunject\";

I want to compare the two above string by their alphabetic order (which in this case \"Project\"

Answer 1

You can call either string's compareTo method (java.lang.String.compareTo). This feature is well documented on the java documentation site.

Here is a short program that demonstrates it:

class StringCompareExample {
    public static void main(String args[]){
        String s1 = "Project"; String s2 = "Sunject";
        verboseCompare(s1, s2);
        verboseCompare(s2, s1);
        verboseCompare(s1, s1);
    }

    public static void verboseCompare(String s1, String s2){
        System.out.println("Comparing \"" + s1 + "\" to \"" + s2 + "\"...");

        int comparisonResult = s1.compareTo(s2);
        System.out.println("The result of the comparison was " + comparisonResult);

        System.out.print("This means that \"" + s1 + "\" ");
        if(comparisonResult < 0){
            System.out.println("lexicographically precedes \"" + s2 + "\".");
        }else if(comparisonResult > 0){
            System.out.println("lexicographically follows \"" + s2 + "\".");
        }else{
            System.out.println("equals \"" + s2 + "\".");
        }
        System.out.println();
    }
}

Here is a live demonstration that shows it works: http://ideone.com/Drikp3

Answer 2

For alphabetical order following nationalization, use Collator.

//Get the Collator for US English and set its strength to PRIMARY
Collator usCollator = Collator.getInstance(Locale.US);
usCollator.setStrength(Collator.PRIMARY);
if( usCollator.compare("abc", "ABC") == 0 ) {
    System.out.println("Strings are equivalent");
}

For a list of supported locales, see JDK 8 and JRE 8 Supported Locales.

Answer 3

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class CandidateCode {
    public static void main(String args[] ) throws Exception {
       Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
           int n =Integer.parseInt(sc.nextLine());
           String arr[] = new String[n];
        for (int i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
                arr[i] = sc.nextLine();
                }


         for(int i = 0; i <arr.length; ++i) {
            for (int j = i + 1; j <arr.length; ++j) {
                if (arr[i].compareTo(arr[j]) > 0) {
                    String temp = arr[i];
                    arr[i] = arr[j];
                    arr[j] = temp;
                }
            }
        }
        for(int i = 0; i <arr.length; i++) {
            System.out.println(arr[i]);
        }
   }
}

Answer 4

String.compareTo might or might not be what you need.

Take a look at this link if you need localized ordering of strings.

Answer 5

String a = "..."; 
String b = "...";  

int compare = a.compareTo(b);  

if (compare < 0) {  
    //a is smaller
}
else if (compare > 0) {
    //a is larger 
}
else {  
    //a is equal to b
} 

Answer 6

Take a look at the String.compareTo method.

s1.compareTo(s2)

From the javadocs:

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. The result is zero if the strings are equal; compareTo returns 0 exactly when the equals(Object) method would return true.