Question

This code is meant to compare the characters in two strings and see if they are the same. It does so by taking the strings, converting them to a char array, sorting them, and then comparing them.

private boolean sameChars(String firstStr, String secondStr)
{
    return Arrays.equals(Arrays.sort(firstStr.toCharArray()), Arrays.sort(secondStr.toCharArray()));
}

When I compile this code, it highlights (firstStr.toCharArray()) and says 'void' type not allowed here. What’s causing the error and how would I fix it?

Answer 1

Arrays.sort() doesn’t return the array. You’ll need to store the character array strings to local variables, then call sort on each variable, and then finally compare the two arrays using Arrays.equals():

char[] firstStrArr = firstStr.toCharArray()
char[] secondStrArr = secondStr.toCharArray()
Arrays.sort(firstStrArr);
Arrays.sort(secondStrArr);
return Arrays.equals(firstStrArr,secondStrArr);