C# difference between == and Equals()

Question

I have a condition in a silverlight application that compares 2 strings, for some reason when I use == it returns false while .Equals() returns true.

Here is the code:

if (((ListBoxItem)lstBaseMenu.SelectedItem).Content.Equals("Energy Attack"))
{
    // Execute code
}

if (((ListBoxItem)lstBaseMenu.SelectedItem).Content == "Energy Attack")
{
    // Execute code
}

Any reason as to why this is happening?

Answer 1

When == is used on an expression of type object, it'll resolve to System.Object.ReferenceEquals.

Equals is just a virtual method and behaves as such, so the overridden version will be used (which, for string type compares the contents).

Answer 2

I am a bit confused here. If the runtime type of Content is of type string, then both == and Equals should return true. However, since this does not appear to be the case, then runtime type of Content is not string and calling Equals on it is doing a referential equality and this explains why Equals("Energy Attack") fails. However, in the second case, the decision as to which overloaded == static operator should be called is made at compile time and this decision appears to be ==(string,string). this suggests to me that Content provides an implicit conversion to string.

Answer 3

== and .Equals are both dependent upon the behavior defined in the actual type and the actual type at the call site. Both are just methods / operators which can be overridden on any type and given any behavior the author so desires. In my experience, I find it's common for people to implement .Equals on an object but neglect to implement operator ==. This means that .Equals will actually measure the equality of the values while == will measure whether or not they are the same reference.

When I'm working with a new type whose definition is in flux or writing generic algorithms, I find the best practice is the following

• If I want to compare references in C#, I use Object.ReferenceEquals directly (not needed in the generic case)
• If I want to compare values I use EqualityComparer<T>.Default

In some cases when I feel the usage of == is ambiguous I will explicitly use Object.Reference equals in the code to remove the ambiguity.

Eric Lippert recently did a blog post on the subject of why there are 2 methods of equality in the CLR. It's worth the read

• http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2009/04/09/double-your-dispatch-double-your-fun.aspx

Answer 4

Because the static version of the .Equal method was not mentioned so far, I would like to add this here to summarize and to compare the 3 variations.

MyString.Equals("Somestring"))          //Method 1
MyString == "Somestring"                //Method 2
String.Equals("Somestring", MyString);  //Method 3 (static String.Equals method) - better

where MyString is a variable that comes from somewhere else in the code.

Background info and to summerize:

In Java using == to compare strings should not be used. I mention this in case you need to use both languages and also to let you know that using == can also be replaced with something better in C#.

In C# there's no practical difference for comparing strings using Method 1 or Method 2 as long as both are of type string. However, if one is null, one is of another type (like an integer), or one represents an object that has a different reference, then, as the initial question shows, you may experience that comparing the content for equality may not return what you expect.

Suggested solution:

Because using == is not exactly the same as using .Equals when comparing things, you can use the static String.Equals method instead. This way, if the two sides are not the same type you will still compare the content and if one is null, you will avoid the exception.

   bool areEqual = String.Equals("Somestring", MyString);  

It is a little more to write, but in my opinion, safer to use.

Here is some info copied from Microsoft:

public static bool Equals (string a, string b);

Parameters

a String

The first string to compare, or null.

b String

The second string to compare, or null.

Returns Boolean

true if the value of a is the same as the value of b; otherwise, false. If both a and b are null, the method returns true.