How to use comparison operators like >, =, < on BigDecimal

Question

I have a domain class with unitPrice set as BigDecimal data type. Now I am trying to create a method to compare price but it seems like I can't have comparison operators in BigDecimal data type. Do I have to change data type or is there other way around?

Solution 1

Every object of the Class BigDecimal has a method compareTo you can use to compare it to another BigDecimal. The result of compareTo is then compared > 0, == 0 or < 0 depending on what you need. Read the documentation and you will find out.

The operators ==, <, > and so on can only be used on primitive data types like int, long, double or their wrapper classes like Integerand Double.

From the documentation of compareTo:

Compares this BigDecimal with the specified BigDecimal.

Two BigDecimal objects that are equal in value but have a different scale (like 2.0 and 2.00) are considered equal by this method. This method is provided in preference to individual methods for each of the six boolean comparison operators (<, ==, >, >=, !=, <=). The suggested idiom for performing these comparisons is: (x.compareTo(y) <op> 0), where <op> is one of the six comparison operators.

Returns: -1, 0, or 1 as this BigDecimal is numerically less than, equal to, or greater than val.

Solution 2

To be short:

firstBigDecimal.compareTo(secondBigDecimal) < 0 // "<"
firstBigDecimal.compareTo(secondBigDecimal) > 0 // ">"    
firstBigDecimal.compareTo(secondBigDecimal) == 0 // "=="  
firstBigDecimal.compareTo(secondBigDecimal) >= 0 // ">="    

Solution 3

Use the compareTo method of BigDecimal :

public int compareTo(BigDecimal val) Compares this BigDecimal with the specified BigDecimal.

Returns:
-1, 0, or 1 as this BigDecimal is numerically less than, equal to, or greater than val.

Solution 4

Here is an example for all six boolean comparison operators (<, ==, >, >=, !=, <=):

BigDecimal big10 = new BigDecimal(10);
BigDecimal big20 = new BigDecimal(20);

System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) < -1);  // false
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) <= -1); // true
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) == -1); // true
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) >= -1); // true
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) > -1);  // false
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) != -1); // false

System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) < 0);   // true
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) <= 0);  // true
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) == 0);  // false
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) >= 0);  // false
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) > 0);   // false
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) != 0);  // true

System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) < 1);   // true
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) <= 1);  // true
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) == 1);  // false
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) >= 1);  // false
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) > 1);   // false
System.out.println(big10.compareTo(big20) != 1);  // true

Solution 5

You can use method named compareTo, x.compareTo(y). It will return 0 if x and y are equal, 1 if x is greater than y and -1 if x is smaller than y

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Comments

[SomeJavaGuy]

since BigDecimal is an Object, no this doesn´t work. But you could simply subtract one from each other and check if the resulting value is <0, ==0 or >0. Otherwise you could go the standard way with the provided methods from BigDecimal

[M. Deinum]

That why there is a compareTo method which returns -1, 0 or 1. Which is basically the Comparable.

[Morteza Adi]

github.com/mortezaadi/bigdecimal-utils

[user3127109]

But does the compareTo method helps in finding like whether the price is greater than, equals to or lower than?

[Drew Kennedy]

Yes. That information is in the link provided in the answer.

[Zoltán]

@user3127109 yes, a.compareTo(b) returns a number greater than zero if a > b, 0 if a == b, and less than zero if a < b.