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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-18T19:59:15+00:00

Most times I want to do string comparisons I want them to be case

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Most times I want to do string comparisons I want them to be case insensitive.

So why are string in .net case sensitive by default?

EDIT 1: To be clear I think the below should return true by default. Or at least allow me to have a compile time flag that makes it so.

"John Smith" == "JOHN SMITH"

EDIT 2: I can think of many more examples of things that should be case insensitive

Examples of things that should be case insensitive

  • Usernames
  • Urls
  • File extensions / File names / Directory names / Paths
  • Machine / servernames
  • State / Country / Location etc
  • FirstName / LastName / Initials
  • Guids
  • Month / Day names

Examples of things that should be case sensitive

  • Passwords
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Sorry for the trivial answer, but that’s just the way it is 🙂

    At a basic level, strings are represented as a list of characters, where ‘a’ is different from ‘A’, so it’s probably the easiest representation \ convention overall. In your case, it’s probably fair to say that the majority of comparisons is case-insensitive, but I think the other side of the argument holds true at least as much and a convention has been adopted.

    I’d imagine utilizing some helper methods \ classes would ease your pain somewhat.

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