The compareTo() method of the Integer class compares the current object’s Integer value to another object’s Integer value.
public int compareTo(Integer b);
b: An object of type Integer whose value is compared to the caller object’s Integer value.This method returns:
0 if the caller object’s value and the passed argument’s value are the same.
A positive value if the caller object’s value is greater than the argument’s value.
A negative value if the caller object’s value is less than the argument’s value.
The code below uses the compareTo method to compare the Integer values as follows:
class IntegerCompareToExample {public static void main( String args[] ) {Integer val1 = 10;Integer val2 = 10;System.out.println("10, 10 : " + val1.compareTo(val2));val2 = 11;System.out.println("10, 11 : " + val1.compareTo(val2));val2 = 9;System.out.println("10, 9 : " + val1.compareTo(val2));}}
In the code above:
In line 3 we create an Integer object variable with the name val1 and the value 10.
In lines 5 and 6 we create another Integer value val2 with the value 10. We call the compareTo method on the val1 object with val2 as the argument. We get 0 as a result because both the values are equal.
In lines 8 and 9 we change the value of val2 to 11 and call the compareTo method on the val1 object with val2 as the argument. We get -1 as a result because val1 is less than val2.
In lines 11 and 12 we change the value of val2 to 9 and call the compareTo method on the val1 object with val2 as the argument. We get 1 as a result because val1 is greater than val2.