Check if string equals quotation marks

Question

I am trying to check if a string equals quotation marks ("). However, string.equals(""") does not work since it thinks I have an extra quotation mark. How can I check if the string equals quotation marks?

Answer 1

str.equals("\"");

\ is used as an escape character to tell the compiler that the next character is to be interpreted literally. In this case, it causes the " to be interpreted as a character in the string instead of as a ending quotation mark. \" is used to represent ".

To be safer with null strings, you can also do:

"\"".equals(str);

This will return false if str is null instead of throwing a NullPointerException.

Answer 2

Use the escape character \. This lets it know the next character should be read as text and not interpreted by the compiler. string.equals("\"") will work.