Steps to compare strings in Java?

== tests object references, .equals() tests the string values.

Sometimes it looks as if == compares values, because Java does some behind-the-scenes stuff to make sure identical in-line strings are actually the same object.

For example:

String fooString1 = new String("foo");
String fooString2 = new String("foo");

// Evaluates to false
fooString1 == fooString2;

// Evaluates to true
fooString1.equals(fooString2);

// Evaluates to true, because Java uses the same object
"bar" == "bar";

But beware of nulls!

== handles null strings fine, but calling .equals() from a null string will cause an exception:

String nullString1 = null;
String nullString2 = null;

// Evaluates to true
nullString1 == nullString2;

// Throws an Exception
nullString1.equals(nullString2);

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