How do I ignore case when using startsWith and endsWith in Java?

Matao Gearsky picture Matao Gearsky · Nov 7, 2014 · Viewed 54.8k times · Source

Here's my code:

public static void rightSel(Scanner scanner,char t)
{
  /*if (!stopping)*/System.out.print(": ");
    if (scanner.hasNextLine())
    {
     String orInput = scanner.nextLine;
        if (orInput.equalsIgnoreCase("help")
        {
            System.out.println("The following commands are available:");
            System.out.println("    'help'      : displays this menu");
            System.out.println("    'stop'      : stops the program");
            System.out.println("    'topleft'   : makes right triangle alligned left and to the top");
            System.out.println("    'topright'  : makes right triangle alligned right and to the top");
            System.out.println("    'botright'  : makes right triangle alligned right and to the bottom");
            System.out.println("    'botleft'   : makes right triangle alligned left and to the bottom");
        System.out.println("To continue, enter one of the above commands.");
     }//help menu
     else if (orInput.equalsIgnoreCase("stop")
     {
        System.out.println("Stopping the program...");
            stopping    = true;
     }//stop command
     else
     {
        String rawInput = orInput;
        String cutInput = rawInput.trim();
        if (

I'd like to allow the user some leeway as to how they can enter the commands, things like: Top Right, top-right, TOPRIGHT, upper left, etc. To that end, I'm trying to, at that last if (, check if cutInput starts with either "top" or "up" AND check if cutInput ends with either "left" or "right", all while being case-insensitive. Is this at all possible?

The end goal of this is to allow the user to, in one line of input, pick from one of four orientations of a triangle. This was the best way I could think of to do that, but I'm still quite new to programming in general and might be over complicating things. If I am, and it turns there's a simpler way, please let me know.

Answer

Óscar López picture Óscar López · Nov 7, 2014

Like this:

aString.toUpperCase().startsWith("SOMETHING");
aString.toUpperCase().endsWith("SOMETHING");