Overwrite String variable contents if variable is blank

Question

I am having trouble with a piece of my program, shown here:

String degree1 = degree.getText();

if(degree1 == ""){
   degree1 = "Undergrad";}

I want the program to get the text in a textField into a variable, and if that field is blank, to change the contents of the variable to 'Undergrad'

Whenever I test my program, it returns a blank instead of 'Undergrad'

Answer 1

It is because you are using == for string comparison. Use if ("".equals(degree1)) instead.

Operator == compares references, i.e. it returns true for the same object only. If 2 objects are equal but not identical == returns false. This is why class Object contains method equals() that can (and typically should) be overridden by subclasses.