Question

Describe the purpose of the following function with its syntax:

compareTo()

Answer 1

This function is used to compare two strings. If both Strings are equal, it returns zero. If not equal, it returns the difference in the first differing letters' ascii values. During comparison, the control continuously compares the characters of both strings. If the characters differ, the comparison will end with a discrepancy in their ascii codes.

Example:

Strings = "Dedicate", y = Devote"; 
System.out.println(x.compareTo(y)); 

Output: −18 [The ascii value of 'd' in Dedicate is 100, but 'v' in Devote is 118. Hence, d − v = −18.]