Question

Java Internationalization Rules. It says to replace

s1.compareTo(s)==0

with

Collator.compare(s1,s2)<0

why <0?

Answer 1

Based on the Javadoc, it is a typo – should be ==:

Returns an integer value. Value is less than zero if source is less than target, value is zero if source and target are equal, value is greater than zero if source is greater than target.

This is for the String overload of Collator.compare (as the linked example compares Strings), but the general version of the method behaves the same way.

The article you referred indirectly links to the corresponding page of the Java Tutorial, which describes the behaviour consistently with the above.