What is the difference between == and equals() in

Question

I wanted to clarify if I understand this correctly:

• == -> is a reference comparison, i.e. both objects point to the same memory location
• .equals() -> evaluates to the comparison of values in the objects

Am I correct in my understanding ?

Answer 1

Here is a general thumb of rule for the difference between relational operator == and the method .equals().

object1 == object2 compares if the objects referenced by object1 and object2 refer to the same memory location in Heap.

object1.equals(object2) compares the values of object1 and object2 regardless of where they are located in memory.

This can be demonstrated well using String

Scenario 1

 public class Conditionals {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
       String str1 = "Hello";
       String str2 = new String("Hello");
       System.out.println("is str1 == str2 ? " + (str1 == str2 ));
       System.out.println("is str1.equals(str2) ? " + (str1.equals(str2 )));
    }

 }



The result is
      is str1 == str2 ? false
      is str1.equals(str2) ? true 

Scenario 2

public class Conditionals {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
       String str1 = "Hello";
       String str2 = "Hello";
       System.out.println("is str1 == str2 ? " + (str1 == str2 ));
       System.out.println("is str1.equals(str2) ? " + (str1.equals(str2 )));
    }

}

The result is 
  is str1 == str2 ? true
  is str1.equals(str2) ? true

This string comparison could be used as a basis for comparing other types of object.

For instance if I have a Person class, I need to define the criteria base on which I will compare two persons. Let's say this person class has instance variables of height and weight.

So creating person objects person1 and person2 and for comparing these two using the .equals() I need to override the equals method of the person class to define based on which instance variables(heigh or weight) the comparison will be.

However, the == operator will still return results based on the memory location of the two objects(person1 and person2).

For ease of generalizing this person object comparison, I have created the following test class. Experimenting on these concepts will reveal tons of facts.

package com.tadtab.CS5044;

public class Person {

private double height;
private double weight;

public double getHeight() {
    return height;
}

public void setHeight(double height) {
    this.height = height;
}

public double getWeight() {
    return weight;
}

public void setWeight(double weight) {
    this.weight = weight;
}


@Override
public int hashCode() {
    final int prime = 31;
    int result = 1;
    long temp;
    temp = Double.doubleToLongBits(height);
    result = prime * result + (int) (temp ^ (temp >>> 32));
    return result;
}

@Override
/**
 * This method uses the height as a means of comparing person objects.
 * NOTE: weight is not part of the comparison criteria
 */
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
    if (this == obj)
        return true;
    if (obj == null)
        return false;
    if (getClass() != obj.getClass())
        return false;
    Person other = (Person) obj;
    if (Double.doubleToLongBits(height) != Double.doubleToLongBits(other.height))
        return false;
    return true;
}

public static void main(String[] args) {

    Person person1 = new Person();
    person1.setHeight(5.50);
    person1.setWeight(140.00);

    Person person2 = new Person();
    person2.setHeight(5.70);
    person2.setWeight(160.00);

    Person person3 = new Person();
    person3 = person2;

    Person person4 = new Person();
    person4.setHeight(5.70);

    Person person5 = new Person();
    person5.setWeight(160.00);

    System.out.println("is person1 == person2 ? " + (person1 == person2)); // false;
    System.out.println("is person2 == person3 ? " + (person2 == person3)); // true 
    //this is because perosn3 and person to refer to the one person object in memory. They are aliases;
    System.out.println("is person2.equals(person3) ? " + (person2.equals(person3))); // true;

    System.out.println("is person2.equals(person4) ? " + (person2.equals(person4))); // true;

    // even if the person2 and person5 have the same weight, they are not equal.
    // it is because their height is different
    System.out.println("is person2.equals(person4) ? " + (person2.equals(person5))); // false;
}

}

Result of this class execution is:

is person1 == person2 ? false
is person2 == person3 ? true
is person2.equals(person3) ? true
is person2.equals(person4) ? true
is person2.equals(person4) ? false

Answer 2

The == operator tests whether two variables have the same references (aka pointer to a memory address).

String foo = new String("abc");
String bar = new String("abc");

if(foo==bar)
// False (The objects are not the same)

bar = foo;

if(foo==bar)
// True (Now the objects are the same)

Whereas the equals() method tests whether two variables refer to objects that have the same state (values).

String foo = new String("abc");
String bar = new String("abc");

if(foo.equals(bar))
// True (The objects are identical but not same)

Cheers :-)

Answer 3

The difference between == and equals confused me for sometime until I decided to have a closer look at it. Many of them say that for comparing string you should use equals and not ==. Hope in this answer I will be able to say the difference.

The best way to answer this question will be by asking a few questions to yourself. so let's start:

What is the output for the below program:

String mango = "mango";
String mango2 = "mango";
System.out.println(mango != mango2);
System.out.println(mango == mango2);

if you say,

false
true

I will say you are right but why did you say that? and If you say the output is,

true
false

I will say you are wrong but I will still ask you, why you think that is right?

Ok, Let's try to answer this one:

What is the output for the below program:

String mango = "mango";
String mango3 = new String("mango");
System.out.println(mango != mango3);
System.out.println(mango == mango3);

Now If you say,

false
true

I will say you are wrong but why is it wrong now? the correct output for this program is

true
false

Please compare the above program and try to think about it.

Ok. Now this might help (please read this : print the address of object - not possible but still we can use it.)

String mango = "mango";
String mango2 = "mango";
String mango3 = new String("mango");
System.out.println(mango != mango2);
System.out.println(mango == mango2);
System.out.println(mango3 != mango2);
System.out.println(mango3 == mango2);
// mango2 = "mang";
System.out.println(mango+" "+ mango2);
System.out.println(mango != mango2);
System.out.println(mango == mango2);

System.out.println(System.identityHashCode(mango));
System.out.println(System.identityHashCode(mango2));
System.out.println(System.identityHashCode(mango3));

can you just try to think about the output of the last three lines in the code above: for me ideone printed this out (you can check the code here):

false
true
true
false
mango mango
false
true
17225372
17225372
5433634

Oh! Now you see the identityHashCode(mango) is equal to identityHashCode(mango2) But it is not equal to identityHashCode(mango3)

Even though all the string variables - mango, mango2 and mango3 - have the same value, which is "mango", identityHashCode() is still not the same for all.

Now try to uncomment this line // mango2 = "mang"; and run it again this time you will see all three identityHashCode() are different. Hmm that is a helpful hint

we know that if hashcode(x)=N and hashcode(y)=N => x is equal to y

I am not sure how java works internally but I assume this is what happened when I said:

mango = "mango";

java created a string "mango" which was pointed(referenced) by the variable mango something like this

mango ----> "mango"

Now in the next line when I said:

mango2 = "mango";

It actually reused the same string "mango" which looks something like this

mango ----> "mango" <---- mango2

Both mango and mango2 pointing to the same reference Now when I said

mango3 = new String("mango")

It actually created a completely new reference(string) for "mango". which looks something like this,

mango -----> "mango" <------ mango2

mango3 ------> "mango"

and that's why when I put out the values for mango == mango2, it put out true. and when I put out the value for mango3 == mango2, it put out false (even when the values were the same).

and when you uncommented the line // mango2 = "mang"; It actually created a string "mang" which turned our graph like this:

mango ---->"mango"
mango2 ----> "mang"
mango3 -----> "mango"

This is why the identityHashCode is not the same for all.

Hope this helps you guys. Actually, I wanted to generate a test case where == fails and equals() pass. Please feel free to comment and let me know If I am wrong.

Answer 4

It may be worth adding that for wrapper objects for primitive types - i.e. Int, Long, Double - == will return true if the two values are equal.

Long a = 10L;
Long b = 10L;

if (a == b) {
    System.out.println("Wrapped primitives behave like values");
}

To contrast, putting the above two Longs into two separate ArrayLists, equals sees them as the same, but == doesn't.

ArrayList<Long> c = new ArrayList<>();
ArrayList<Long> d = new ArrayList<>();

c.add(a);
d.add(b);
if (c == d) System.out.println("No way!");
if (c.equals(d)) System.out.println("Yes, this is true.");

Answer 5

Since Java doesn’t support operator overloading, == behaves identical for every object but equals() is method, which can be overridden in Java and logic to compare objects can be changed based upon business rules.

Main difference between == and equals in Java is that "==" is used to compare primitives while equals() method is recommended to check equality of objects.

String comparison is a common scenario of using both == and equals method. Since java.lang.String class override equals method, It return true if two String object contains same content but == will only return true if two references are pointing to same object.

Here is an example of comparing two Strings in Java for equality using == and equals() method which will clear some doubts:

public class TEstT{

    public static void main(String[] args) {

String text1 = new String("apple");
String text2 = new String("apple");

//since two strings are different object result should be false
boolean result = text1 == text2;
System.out.println("Comparing two strings with == operator: " + result);

//since strings contains same content , equals() should return true
result = text1.equals(text2);
System.out.println("Comparing two Strings with same content using equals method: " + result);

text2 = text1;
//since both text2 and text1d reference variable are pointing to same object
//"==" should return true
result = (text1 == text2);
System.out.println("Comparing two reference pointing to same String with == operator: " + result);

}
}

Answer 6

You will have to override the equals function (along with others) to use this with custom classes.

The equals method compares the objects.

The == binary operator compares memory addresses.