indexOf Case Sensitive?

Question

Is the indexOf(String) method case sensitive? If so, is there a case insensitive version of it?

Answer 1

Is the indexOf(String) method case sensitive?

Yes, it is case sensitive:

@Test
public void indexOfIsCaseSensitive() {
    assertTrue("Hello World!".indexOf("Hello") != -1);
    assertTrue("Hello World!".indexOf("hello") == -1);
}

If so, is there a case insensitive version of it?

No, there isn't. You can convert both strings to lower case before calling indexOf:

@Test
public void caseInsensitiveIndexOf() {
    assertTrue("Hello World!".toLowerCase().indexOf("Hello".toLowerCase()) != -1);
    assertTrue("Hello World!".toLowerCase().indexOf("hello".toLowerCase()) != -1);
}

Answer 2

What are you doing with the index value once returned?

If you are using it to manipulate your string, then could you not use a regular expression instead?

import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;    
import org.junit.Test;

public class StringIndexOfRegexpTest {

    @Test
    public void testNastyIndexOfBasedReplace() {
        final String source = "Hello World";
        final int index = source.toLowerCase().indexOf("hello".toLowerCase());
        final String target = "Hi".concat(source.substring(index
                + "hello".length(), source.length()));
        assertEquals("Hi World", target);
    }

    @Test
    public void testSimpleRegexpBasedReplace() {
        final String source = "Hello World";
        final String target = source.replaceFirst("(?i)hello", "Hi");
        assertEquals("Hi World", target);
    }
}

Answer 3

I would like to lay claim to the ONE and only solution posted so far that actually works. :-)

Three classes of problems that have to be dealt with.

1. Non-transitive matching rules for lower and uppercase. The Turkish I problem has been mentioned frequently in other replies. According to comments in Android source for String.regionMatches, the Georgian comparison rules requires additional conversion to lower-case when comparing for case-insensitive equality.

2. Cases where upper- and lower-case forms have a different number of letters. Pretty much all of the solutions posted so far fail, in these cases. Example: German STRASSE vs. Straße have case-insensitive equality, but have different lengths.

3. Binding strengths of accented characters. Locale AND context effect whether accents match or not. In French, the uppercase form of 'é' is 'E', although there is a movement toward using uppercase accents . In Canadian French, the upper-case form of 'é' is 'É', without exception. Users in both countries would expect "e" to match "é" when searching. Whether accented and unaccented characters match is locale-specific. Now consider: does "E" equal "É"? Yes. It does. In French locales, anyway.

I am currently using android.icu.text.StringSearch to correctly implement previous implementations of case-insensitive indexOf operations.

Non-Android users can access the same functionality through the ICU4J package, using the com.ibm.icu.text.StringSearch class.

Be careful to reference classes in the correct icu package (android.icu.text or com.ibm.icu.text) as Android and the JRE both have classes with the same name in other namespaces (e.g. Collator).

    this.collator = (RuleBasedCollator)Collator.getInstance(locale);
    this.collator.setStrength(Collator.PRIMARY);

    ....

    StringSearch search = new StringSearch(
         pattern,
         new StringCharacterIterator(targetText),
         collator);
    int index = search.first();
    if (index != SearchString.DONE)
    {
        // remember that the match length may NOT equal the pattern length.
        length = search.getMatchLength();
        .... 
    }

Test Cases (Locale, pattern, target text, expectedResult):

    testMatch(Locale.US,"AbCde","aBcDe",true);
    testMatch(Locale.US,"éèê","EEE",true);

    testMatch(Locale.GERMAN,"STRASSE","Straße",true);
    testMatch(Locale.FRENCH,"éèê","EEE",true);
    testMatch(Locale.FRENCH,"EEE","éèê",true);
    testMatch(Locale.FRENCH,"éèê","ÉÈÊ",true);

    testMatch(new Locale("tr-TR"),"TITLE","tıtle",true);  // Turkish dotless I/i
    testMatch(new Locale("tr-TR"),"TİTLE","title",true);  // Turkish dotted I/i
    testMatch(new Locale("tr-TR"),"TITLE","title",false);  // Dotless-I != dotted i.

PS: As best as I can determine, the PRIMARY binding strength should do the right thing when locale-specific rules differentiate between accented and non-accented characters according to dictionary rules; but I don't which locale to use to test this premise. Donated test cases would be gratefully appreciated.

--

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Answer 4

@Test
public void testIndexofCaseSensitive() {
    TestCase.assertEquals(-1, "abcDef".indexOf("d") );
}

Answer 5

Yes, indexOf is case sensitive.

The best way to do case insensivity I have found is:

String original;
int idx = original.toLowerCase().indexOf(someStr.toLowerCase());

That will do a case insensitive indexOf().

Answer 6

 static string Search(string factMessage, string b)
        {

            int index = factMessage.IndexOf(b, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);
            string line = null;
            int i = index;
            if (i == -1)
            { return "not matched"; }
            else
            {
                while (factMessage[i] != ' ')
                {
                    line = line + factMessage[i];
                    i++;
                }

                return line;
            }

        }