Java compareTo() Method: Comparing Objects with Natural Ordering

The compareTo() method in Java is used for comparing two objects. It's defined in the Comparable interface and implemented by various Java classes. This method returns an integer value representing the comparison outcome.

The compareTo() method compares objects based on their natural ordering. For instance, the String class implements the compareTo() method to compare two strings lexicographically.

The general syntax of the compareTo() method is:

public int compareTo(Object obj)

The method accepts an object as an argument and returns an integer value. The return value is negative if the object is less than the argument object, zero if they are equal, and positive if the object is greater than the argument object.

Consider the following code that compares two strings using the compareTo() method:

String str1 = 'apple';
String str2 = 'banana';

int result = str1.compareTo(str2);

System.out.println(result);

In this code, the result variable will contain a negative value because 'apple' comes before 'banana' in the dictionary.