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Java BigDecimal compareTo() Method with Example

BigDecimal Class compareTo() method: Here, we are going to learn about the compareTo() method of BigDecimal Class with its syntax and example.
Submitted by Preeti Jain, on May 03, 2020

BigDecimal Class compareTo() method

• compareTo() method is available in java.math package.
• compareTo() method is used to compare this BigDecimal object to the given object or in other words we can say this method compares two objects of “BigDecimal” type and when both the objects are same in value but different in terms of the scale then it is treated to be equal.
• compareTo() method is a non-static method, it is accessible with the class object only and if we try to access the method with the class name then we will get an error.
• compareTo() method does not throw an exception at the time of comparing.

Syntax:

    public int compareTo(BigDecimal ob);

Parameter(s):

• BigDecimal ob – represents the object to be compared to this BigDecimal object.

Return value:

The return type of this method is int, it may return anyone of the given values,

• When (this BigDecimal) == (BigDecimal ob), it returns 0.
• When (this BigDecimal) < (BigDecimal ob), it returns -1.
• When (this BigDecimal) > (BigDecimal ob), it returns 1.

Example:

// Java program to demonstrate the example 
// of int compareTo() method of BigDecimal

import java.math.*;

public class CompareToOfBD {
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        // Initialize two variables of int and 
        // String type

        int val = 125;
        String str = "100";

        // Initialize two BigDecimal objects  
        BigDecimal b_dec1 = new BigDecimal(val);
        BigDecimal b_dec2 = new BigDecimal(str);

        // By using compareTo() method is to 
        // compare this BigDecimal (b_dec1) to the
        // given BigDecimal (b_dec1) if both are same
        // then it returns 0
        int compare = b_dec1.compareTo(b_dec1);
        System.out.println("b_dec1.compareTo(b_dec1): " + compare);

        // By using compareTo() method is to 
        // compare this BigDecimal (b_dec1) to the
        // given BigDecimal (b_dec2) it returns 1 because
        // this BigDecimal (b_dec1) > BigDecimal (b_dec2)
        compare = b_dec1.compareTo(b_dec2);
        System.out.println("b_dec1.compareTo(b_dec2): " + compare);
    }
}

Output

b_dec1.compareTo(b_dec1): 0
b_dec1.compareTo(b_dec2): 1