title: equal() and equalsIgnoreCase() return false for equal strings
body: <p>I'm working with eclipse IDE (Version: 3.4.2) on a mac and I have met the following issue.</p>
  
  <p>When comparing between strings using equal() or equalsIgnoreCase() methods I receive false even when the string are equal. For example, the code below consider the following condition as false, even when values[0] = "debug_mode"</p>
  
  <pre><code>if (values[0].equalsIgnoreCase("debug_mode")) 
      debug_mode = true;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which is part of the following loop:</p>
  
  <pre><code>String value = dis.readLine();
  String values[] = value.trim().split("=");
  if (values.length &gt;= 2)
  {
      Config.prnt_dbg_msg(values[0] + "\t" + values[1]);
      if (values[0].equalsIgnoreCase("debug_mode")) 
          debug_mode = isTrue(values[1]);
      if (values[0].equalsIgnoreCase("debug_query_parsing")) 
          debug_query_parsing = isTrue(values[1]);
      if (values[0].equalsIgnoreCase("username")) 
          Connection_Manager.alterAccessParameters(values[1], null, null);
      if (values[0].equalsIgnoreCase("password")) 
          Connection_Manager.alterAccessParameters(null, values[1], null);
  if (values[0].equalsIgnoreCase("database")) 
          Connection_Manager.alterAccessParameters(null, null, values[1]);
      if (values[0].equalsIgnoreCase("allow_duplicate_entries")) 
          allow_duplicate_entries = isTrue(values[1]);
  }                         
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I tried to use <code>value[0].equal("debug_mode")</code> and got the same result.
  Does someone have any idea why?</p>