Is String not considered an object?

Question

What I do not understand is why I am getting an error compiling my code when a String is in fact an object, and the compiler is saying otherwise. I dont know why I keep getting this error message

  symbol:   method compareTo(Object)
  location: variable least of type Object
.\DataSet.java:17: error: cannot find symbol
   else if(maximum.compareTo(x) < 0)

here is the code. I'm trying to utilize the class comparable to allow two objects to use the compareTo method. In the tester, I'm just trying to use a basic string object to compare.

public class DataSetTester
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
    DataSet ds = new DataSet();
    String man = "dog";
    String woman = "cat";
    ds.add(man);
    ds.add(woman);
    System.out.println("Maximum Word: " + ds.getMaximum());


 }
}

Class:

public class DataSet implements Comparable 
{
 private Object maximum;
 private Object least;
 private int count;
 private int answer;

 public void add(Object x)
 {

   if(count == 0){
     least = x;
     maximum = x;
   }
   else if(least.compareTo(x) > 0)
     least = x;
   else if(maximum.compareTo(x) < 0)
    maximum = x;
   count++;
 }

 public int compareTo(Object anObject)
 {
     return this.compareTo(anObject);
 }

 public Object getMaximum()
 {
  return maximum;
 }

 public Object getLeast()
 {
   return least;
 }
}

Comparable Interface:

public interface Comparable
{
    public int compareTo(Object anObject);
}

Answer 1

Of course String is an Object.

Comparable is generic now. Why do you feel the need to make those references Object if they are type String? Your code is poor; it's not a Java problem.

I don't see why DataSet needs to implement Comparable. You just need to compare incoming Strings as they're added. Do it this way and you'll fare better:

public class DataSet {
    private String maximum;
    private String least;
    private int count;
    private int answer;

    public void add(String x) {  
        if(count == 0){
             least = x;
             maximum = x;
        } else if (least.compareTo(x) > 0) {
             least = x;
        } else if(maximum.compareTo(x) < 0) {
             maximum = x;
        }
        count++;
    }

    public String getMaximum() { return this.maximum; }

    public String getLeast() { return this.least; }

    public int getCount() { return this.count; }
}