InvariantCulture vs. Ordinal: When Should I Use Which String Comparison in C#?

Differences between InvariantCulture and Ordinal string comparison in C#

When determining whether two strings are equal in C#, developers can choose to use InvariantCulture or Ordinal comparison. The differences between the two methods will affect the results of the comparison.

InvariantCulture comparison

InvariantCulture comparison ignores culture-specific conventions and uses a standard set of comparison rules. This is especially useful when comparing strings from different languages ​​or cultures that may have different character representation conventions.

Consider the following example:

<code class="language-csharp">var s1 = "Strasse";
var s2 = "Straße";

s1.Equals(s2, StringComparison.InvariantCulture);  // true</code>

In this example, the InvariantCulture comparison expands the special character "ß" in "Straße" to "ss", so the results are equal despite the different character representations.

Ordinal comparison

Ordinal comparison, on the other hand, considers the specific character code assigned to each character in the string. It does not apply any culture-specific rules or character expansion.

Using the same example as before:

<code class="language-csharp">s1.Equals(s2, StringComparison.Ordinal);           // false</code>

Using Ordinal comparison, the "ß" character in "Straße" is considered a different character than "ss", so the strings are considered unequal.

Summary

The choice between InvariantCulture and Ordinal string comparison ultimately depends on the desired comparison behavior. If culture-specific conventions are not relevant or should be ignored, InvariantCulture may be more appropriate. However, if an exact character-by-character comparison is required, Ordinal comparison is the appropriate choice. Understanding these differences is critical for accurate and reliable string comparisons in C#.

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