Python String equals

Python strings equality can be checked using == operator or __eq__() function. Python strings are case sensitive, so these equality check methods are also case sensitive.

Python String equals

Let’s look at some examples to check if two strings are equal or not.

s1 = 'Apple'

s2 = 'Apple'

s3 = 'apple'

# case sensitive equals check
if s1 == s2:
    print('s1 and s2 are equal.')

if s1.__eq__(s2):
    print('s1 and s2 are equal.')

Output:

s1 and s2 are equal.
s1 and s2 are equal.

If you want to perform inequality check, you can use != operator.

if s1 != s3:
    print('s1 and s3 are not equal')

Output: s1 and s3 are not equal

Python String equals case-insensitive check

Sometimes we don’t care about the case while checking if two strings are equal, we can use casefold(), lower() or upper() functions for case-insensitive equality check.

if s1.casefold() == s3.casefold():
    print(s1.casefold())
    print(s3.casefold())
    print('s1 and s3 are equal in case-insensitive comparison')

if s1.lower() == s3.lower():
    print(s1.lower())
    print(s3.lower())
    print('s1 and s3 are equal in case-insensitive comparison')

if s1.upper() == s3.upper():
    print(s1.upper())
    print(s3.upper())
    print('s1 and s3 are equal in case-insensitive comparison')

Output:

apple
apple
s1 and s3 are equal in case-insensitive comparison
apple
apple
s1 and s3 are equal in case-insensitive comparison
APPLE
APPLE
s1 and s3 are equal in case-insensitive comparison

Python String equals with special characters

Let’s look at some examples where strings contain special characters.

s1 = '$#ç∂'
s2 = '$#ç∂'

print('s1 == s2?', s1 == s2)
print('s1 != s2?', s1 != s2)
print('s1.lower() == s2.lower()?', s1.lower() == s2.lower())
print('s1.upper() == s2.upper()?', s1.upper() == s2.upper())
print('s1.casefold() == s2.casefold()?', s1.casefold() == s2.casefold())

Output:

s1 == s2? True
s1 != s2? False
s1.lower() == s2.lower()? True
s1.upper() == s2.upper()? True
s1.casefold() == s2.casefold()? True

That’s all for checking if two strings are equal or not in Python.