Java – String equals() and equalsIgnoreCase() Methods example

In this tutorial we will discuss equals() and equalsIgnoreCase() methods. Both of these methods are used for comparing two strings. The only difference between them is that the equals() methods considers the case while equalsIgnoreCase() methods ignores the case during comparison. For e.g. The equals() method would return false if we compare the strings “TEXT” and “text” however equalsIgnoreCase() would return true.

boolean equals(String str): Case sensitive comparison
boolean equalsIgnoreCase(String str): Case in-sensitive comparison

Example 1: equals()

public class EqualsExample1{
   public static void main(String args[]){
       String str1= new String("Hello");
       String str2= new String("Hi");
       String str3= new String("Hello");
       System.out.println("str1 equals to str2:"+str1.equals(str2));
       System.out.println("str1 equals to str3:"+str1.equals(str3));
       System.out.println("str1 equals to Welcome:"+str1.equals("Welcome"));
       System.out.println("str1 equals to Hello:"+str1.equals("Hello"));
       System.out.println("str1 equals to hello:"+str1.equals("hello"));
   }
}

Output:

str1 equals to str2:false
str1 equals to str3:true
str1 equals to Welcome:false
str1 equals to Hello:true
str1 equals to hello:false

Example2: equalsIgnoreCase()

public class EqualsExample2{
   public static void main(String args[]){
       String str1= new String("Apple");
       String str2= new String("MANGO");
       String str3= new String("APPLE");
       System.out.println("str1 equals to str2:"+str1.equalsIgnoreCase(str2));
       System.out.println("str1 equals to str3:"+str1.equalsIgnoreCase(str3));
       System.out.println("str1 equals to Welcome:"+str1.equalsIgnoreCase("Welcome"));
       System.out.println("str1 equals to Apple:"+str1.equalsIgnoreCase("Apple"));
       System.out.println("str2 equals to mango:"+str2.equalsIgnoreCase("mango"));
   }
}

Output:

str1 equals to str2:false
str1 equals to str3:true
str1 equals to Welcome:false
str1 equals to Apple:true
str2 equals to mango:true