Question

Suppose s1 and s2 are Strings and the following code is run:

s1 = s1.toLowerCase();
s2 = s2.toLowerCase();
System.out.println(s1.compareTo(s2));

If the code causes -25 to be output, which of the following must be true

Answer 1

The output of -25 from the compareTo() method indicates that string s1 comes before s2 in lexicographic order by a difference of 25 in their characters' Unicode values, disregarding case sensitivity.

Step-by-step explanation:

If the code causes -25 to be output when comparing s1 and s2 using the compareTo() method, it indicates that s1 comes before s2 in lexicographical order, and there is a difference of 25 in their comparing characters' Unicode values.

The compareTo() method in Java compares two strings lexicographically and returns a negative integer, zero, or a positive integer as the first string is less than, equal to, or greater than the second string. Since both strings have been converted to lower case, we ignore case sensitivity in this comparison.

The given code converts both s1 and s2 to lowercase using the toLowerCase() method. Then, it uses the compareTo() method to compare the two strings and returns an integer value. If the code outputs -25, it indicates that s1 comes before s2 in lexicographical order.