Question

String w1;

String w2 = "apple";
String w3 = "banana";

What is the output?

System.out.println(w2.compareTo(w3));

Answer 1

The output of System.out.println(w2.compareTo(w3)); where w2 is "apple" and w3 is "banana" will be a negative integer since 'apple' is lexicographically before 'banana'.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Java code provided is using the compareTo() method to compare two String objects: w2 which is assigned the value "apple" and w3 which is assigned the value "banana". When the compareTo() method is called, it compares the two strings lexicographically. The comparison is based on the Unicode value of each character in the strings.The compareTo() method returns an integer value. If the string calling the method (in this case, w2) is lexicographically earlier than the string being compared (in this case, w3), it will return a negative number. If it is later, it will return a positive number. If the strings are equal, it will return 0. Since 'apple' comes before 'banana', the output will be a negative integer.

The compareTo() method in Java is used to compare two strings lexicographically. It returns an integer value that indicates the difference between the two strings.If w2 is lexicographically less than w3, then the output will be a negative integer. In this case, since "apple" comes before "banana" in the dictionary, the output will be a negative value.