C# String CompareOrdinal() Method

January 19, 2021 1:24 pm IST

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C# String CompareOrdinal()

The CompareOrdinal() method compares the characters of two strings.

The characters of the strings may be in lower case or upper case, this method discriminates between them.

Every character holds an ASCII value (an integer ranging from 0 to 127). For example, 'A' holds the ASCII value of 65 and 'a' holds the ASCII value of 97. So, in the comparison between two strings, their ASCII values are compared.

The CompareOrdinal() method starts comparison character by character starting from the first character until the characters in both strings are equal or a NULL character is encountered.

In the following example, the first character of str2 string object holds 'c' (ASCII value is 99) and the first character of str1 string object holds 'a' (ASCII value is 97). The CompareOrdinal() method returns the difference in ASCII value i.e, 2.

Example

C# Compiler

using System; namespace myApp { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string str1 = "apple"; string str2 = "cat"; // c - a = 99 - 97 = 2 int res = String.CompareOrdinal(str2, str1); Console.WriteLine("Difference is {0}", res); } } }