Sword

Swords are weapons that kill mobs or players (if multiplayer PvP is on) more quickly than bare hands, but swords are not required to defeat enemies. They also can remove several blocks faster than using bare hands (such as leaves, wool,and Soul Sand), but instead of one use of the Durability Bar, it counts as two uses. Killing larger slimes with a sword will also prevent more slimes from spawning. In The Nether you can find Zombie Pigmen that use Golden Swords, but they do not drop their swords when killed. Because mobs require fewer hits to kill with higher level swords, you will use these swords less, which causes diamond swords to last an extremely long time.

Stone (or better) swords revert minecarts in one hit with no decrease in durability, whereas wooden swords require two hits.

Crafting
Swords are created with 1 stick and 2 units of a tool material:

The following table summarizes the damage that different quality swords inflict.

As of Beta 1.5, all melee weapons, including the hands, do half a heart more damage, making the stone sword as effective as the iron one at killing mobs with 10 hearts of HP(3 hits).

Combat
The sword is a potent weapon if you can use it properly. Depending upon the type of material you use when building, you can severely injure your enemies. The best choice for a sword is diamond, however, this is a rare material, so it is suggested to use iron instead. The weaker swords are not recommended for creeper combat(especially on hard). If it comes to a stone sword or a bow, the better choice is the bow, having a much farther range. If you approach a creeper with a sword, a recommended strategy is to hit the creeper, and then to run away until the hissing stops and run forward and hit it again, repeating this as many times as necessary. The gold sword is extremely inefficient, and you would be better off making two golden shovels, as these will dig much better than the sword will damage. Attacking while falling will deal bonus damage, so jumping and attacking will kill enemies faster.

Schwert Zwaard