What’s the difference between equals() and ==?

[arshi1586]

What’s the difference between equals() and ==?

[2kaud]

The equals() method compares two objects for equality and returns true if they are equal. The implicit contract of the equals() method is that it tests for equality rather than identity. Thus most classes will override equals() with a version that does field by field comparisons before deciding whether to return true or false. An object created by a clone() method (that is a copy of the object) should pass the equals() test if neither the original nor the clone has changed since the clone was created. However the clone will fail to be == to the original object.

See
http://www.leepoint.net/data/express...reobjects.html

[sidsomashak]

You can refer below resource for difference between equals() and == with some example,

http://www.flowerbrackets.com/string...-java-program/

[wolle]

What’s the difference between equals() and ==?

The test r1==r2 checks whether the two references r1 and r2 hold the exact same object or not.

On the other hand r1.equals(r2) checks whether the objects held by r1 and r2 have the same content. What's to be considered "the same content" is up to the programmer to determine by overriding the equals() method defined in the Object class. The Object class is the Java top class and it's always automatically inherited by every other class so equals() is available everywhere to use as it is or to override.

If r1==r2 is true then r1.equals(r2) must be true because the same object obviously has the same content. If r1==r2 is false then r1.equals(r2) might still be true because different objects can have the same content indeed.

If the programmer defines a class but doesn't override equals() and then still compares two objects of that class using r1.equals(r2) then the outcome will be the same as if r1==r2 was used. It's because that's how equals() is implemented in the Object class.

To learn how to go about to override equals() it is best to look at an example in a tutorial.