Welcome to the Treehouse Community

The Treehouse Community is a meeting place for developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels to get support. Collaborate here on code errors or bugs that you need feedback on, or asking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project. Join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today. (Note: Only Treehouse students can comment or ask questions, but non-students are welcome to browse our conversations.)

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and a supportive community. Start your free trial today.

Java Java Basics Perfecting the Prototype String Equality

Posted by Patty Robben
Patty Robben
397 Points

proving a statement is equal to another with a boolean

I don't know what is wrong with my code. It says that I have a compiler error and I don't remember what to do.

Equality.java 
// I have imported a java.io.Console for you, it is named console. 
String firstExample = "hello";
String secondExample = "hello";
String thirdExample = "HELLO";
if (firstExample = secondExample) {
  console.printf("first is equal to second");
}

1 Answer

Jeremy Hill
Jeremy Hill
29,567 Points

When you have just a single '=' it tries to set one thing equal to another; when checking for equality you need to use either double equals '==' or .equals(). In this case you should be using the .equals() method: 

 if(firstExample.equals(secondExample){
// do something
}
Craig Dennis
Craig Dennis
Treehouse Teacher
Craig Dennis
Craig Dennis
Treehouse Teacher

Nice job Jeremy! Missing a trailing parenthesis there at the end...to close the one you opened with the if statement.

Jeremy Hill
Jeremy Hill
29,567 Points

Oops, I did forget that. Thank you.