comparing two strings in excel?

Question

I need to compare two strings in excel and determine if they are equal, the strings are in adjacent cells. For example, given:

apple   apple
water   water
pear    carrot
apple   water
dog     dog
pear    carrot

the formula on the third column should give me:

true
true
false
false
true
false

Any help appreciated, Ted

Answer 1

If case is not important, =A1=B1. If case matters, =IF(A1=B1,"true","false").

Answer 2

use the built in 'exact' function which is exact-ly for this purpose. =exact(A1, B1)

will return true if the strings are identical.