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Compare two strings lexicographically in Java

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In this article, we will discuss how we can compare two strings lexicographically in Java. One solution is to use Java compareTo() method. The method compareTo() is used for comparing two strings lexicographically in Java. Each character of both the strings is converted into a Unicode value for comparison.

int compareTo(String str) :

It returns the following values:

  1. if (string1 > string2) it returns a positive value.
  2. if both the strings are equal lexicographically i.e.(string1 == string2) it returns 0.
  3. if (string1 < string2) it returns a negative value.

Java




// Java program to Compare two strings 
// lexicographically 
class Compare { 
  
    // This method compares two strings 
    // lexicographically without using 
    // library functions 
    public static int stringCompare(String str1, 
                                    String str2) 
    
        for (int i = 0; i < str1.length() && 
                    i < str2.length(); i++) { 
            if ((int)str1.charAt(i) == 
                (int)str2.charAt(i)) { 
                continue
            
            else
                return (int)str1.charAt(i) - 
                    (int)str2.charAt(i); 
            
        
  
        // Edge case for strings like 
        // String 1="Geeky" and String 2="Geekyguy" 
        if (str1.length() < str2.length()) { 
            return (str1.length()-str2.length()); 
        
        else if (str1.length() > str2.length()) { 
            return (str1.length()-str2.length()); 
        
          
        // If none of the above conditions is true, 
        // it implies both the strings are equal 
        else
            return 0
        
    
  
    // Driver function to test the above program 
    public static void main(String args[]) 
    
        String string1 = new String("Geeks"); 
        String string2 = new String("Practice"); 
        String string3 = new String("Geeks"); 
        String string4 = new String("Geeksforgeeks"); 
      
        System.out.println(stringCompare(string1, 
                                        string2)); 
        System.out.println(stringCompare(string1, 
                                        string3)); 
        System.out.println(stringCompare(string2, 
                                        string1)); 
  
        // To show for edge case 
        // In these cases, the output is the difference of 
        // length of the string 
        System.out.println(stringCompare(string1, 
                                        string4)); 
        System.out.println(stringCompare(string4, 
                                        string1)); 
    


Output

 Comparing strings with compareTo:
0
-1
17

Time Complexity: O(N)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)

Refer How to Initialize and Compare Strings in Java? for more details. How to compare two strings without using library function?

1. Input two strings string 1 and string 2.
2. for (int i = 0; i < str1.length() &&
i < str2.length(); i ++)
(Loop through each character of both
strings comparing them until one
of the string terminates):
a. If unicode value of both the characters
is same then continue;
b. If unicode value of character of
string 1 and unicode value of string 2
is different then return (str1[i]-str2[i])
3. if length of string 1 is less than string2
return str2[str1.length()]
else
return str1[str2.length()]

Below is the implementation of the above algorithm. 

Java





Output

-9
0
9
-8
8

Time Complexity: O(n)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)

 



Last Updated : 18 Sep, 2023
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