[java] Comparing strings by their alphabetical order

String s1 = "Project";
String s2 = "Sunject";

I want to compare the two above string by their alphabetic order (which in this case "Project" then "Sunject" as "P" comes before "S"). Does anyone know how to do that in Java?

You can call either string's compareTo method (java.lang.String.compareTo). This feature is well documented on the java documentation site.

Here is a short program that demonstrates it:

class StringCompareExample {
    public static void main(String args[]){
        String s1 = "Project"; String s2 = "Sunject";
        verboseCompare(s1, s2);
        verboseCompare(s2, s1);
        verboseCompare(s1, s1);
    }

    public static void verboseCompare(String s1, String s2){
        System.out.println("Comparing \"" + s1 + "\" to \"" + s2 + "\"...");

        int comparisonResult = s1.compareTo(s2);
        System.out.println("The result of the comparison was " + comparisonResult);

        System.out.print("This means that \"" + s1 + "\" ");
        if(comparisonResult < 0){
            System.out.println("lexicographically precedes \"" + s2 + "\".");
        }else if(comparisonResult > 0){
            System.out.println("lexicographically follows \"" + s2 + "\".");
        }else{
            System.out.println("equals \"" + s2 + "\".");
        }
        System.out.println();
    }
}

Here is a live demonstration that shows it works: http://ideone.com/Drikp3

For alphabetical order following nationalization, use Collator.

//Get the Collator for US English and set its strength to PRIMARY
Collator usCollator = Collator.getInstance(Locale.US);
usCollator.setStrength(Collator.PRIMARY);
if( usCollator.compare("abc", "ABC") == 0 ) {
    System.out.println("Strings are equivalent");
}

For a list of supported locales, see JDK 8 and JRE 8 Supported Locales.

Take a look at the String.compareTo method.

s1.compareTo(s2)

From the javadocs:

The result is a negative integer if this String object lexicographically precedes the argument string. The result is a positive integer if this String object lexicographically follows the argument string. The result is zero if the strings are equal; compareTo returns 0 exactly when the equals(Object) method would return true.

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class CandidateCode {
    public static void main(String args[] ) throws Exception {
       Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
           int n =Integer.parseInt(sc.nextLine());
           String arr[] = new String[n];
        for (int i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
                arr[i] = sc.nextLine();
                }


         for(int i = 0; i <arr.length; ++i) {
            for (int j = i + 1; j <arr.length; ++j) {
                if (arr[i].compareTo(arr[j]) > 0) {
                    String temp = arr[i];
                    arr[i] = arr[j];
                    arr[j] = temp;
                }
            }
        }
        for(int i = 0; i <arr.length; i++) {
            System.out.println(arr[i]);
        }
   }
}

As others suggested, you can use String.compareTo(String).

But if you are sorting a list of Strings and you need a Comparator, you don't have to implement it, you can use Comparator.naturalOrder() or Comparator.reverseOrder().

String a = "..."; 
String b = "...";  

int compare = a.compareTo(b);  

if (compare < 0) {  
    //a is smaller
}
else if (compare > 0) {
    //a is larger 
}
else {  
    //a is equal to b
}