What will happen if you compare an empty string with another variable using the == operator?

In Java, the == operator compares references to objects when comparing strings, not their contents. If you have an empty string created as "", and another variable of type String, then:

• If the other variable also points to the string literal "" from the string pool, then == will return true, since both refer to the same object.
• If the other variable is a new string object, for example created via new String(""), then == will return false, since the references are different.

To compare the contents of strings, always use the .equals() method. For example:

String a = "";
String b = new String("");
System.out.println(a == b); // false
System.out.println(a.equals(b)); // true