CONTROL STRUCTURES I: SELECTION - Java Programming: From Problem Analysis to Program Design - page 228

Sample Run: (In this sample run, the user input is shaded.)
Enter the tax filing status: married

Enter filing joint/separately: joint

Filing status: married joint
Standard exemption: $12000.00
The preceding output is self-explanatory. The details are left as an exercise.

In addition to the method compareTo ,youcanalsousethemethod equals of the
class String to determine whether two String objects contain the same value.
However, the method equals returns the value true or false .Forexample,the
expression:

str1.equals("Hello")
evaluates to true , while the expression:

str1.equals(str2)

evaluates to false , where str1 and str2 are as defined in Example 4-26.

You can apply the relational operators == and != to variables of the String type, such
as the variables str1 and str2 . However, when these operators are applied to these
variables they compare the values of the variables, not the values of the String objects
they point to. For example, suppose, as in Figure 4-6:
str1 = "Hello";
str2 = "Hi";

str1 Hello

str2 Hi

FIGURE 4-6 Variables str1, str2, and the objects to which they point

The expression ( str1 == str2 ) determines whether the values of str1 and
str2 are the same, that is, if str1 and str2 point to the same String object.
Similarly, the expression ( str1 != str2 ) determines whether the values of str1
and str2 are not the same, that is, if str1 and str2 do not point to the same
String object.