What's the difference between “.equals” and “==”? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Lets say that "==" operator returns true if both both operands belong to same object but when it will return true as we can't assign a single object multiple values

public static void main(String [] args){
    String s1 = "Hello";
    String s1 = "Hello";  // This is not possible to assign multiple values to single object
    if(s1 == s1){
      // Now this retruns true
   }
}

Now when this happens practically speaking, If its not happen then why this is == compares functionality....

Answer 2

(1) == can be be applied for both primitives and object types, but equals() method can be applied for only object types.

(2) == cannot be overridden for content comparison, but equals method can be overridden for content comparison(ex; String class, wrapper classes, collection classes).

(3) == gives incomparable types error when try to apply for heterogeneous types , where as equals method returns false.

Answer 3

In Java, when the “==” operator is used to compare 2 objects, it checks to see if the objects refer to the same place in memory. EX:

String obj1 = new String("xyz");
String obj2 = new String("xyz");
if(obj1 == obj2)
   System.out.println("obj1==obj2 is TRUE");
else
  System.out.println("obj1==obj2 is FALSE");

Even though the strings have the same exact characters (“xyz”), The code above will actually output: obj1==obj2 is FALSE

Java String class actually overrides the default equals() implementation in the Object class – and it overrides the method so that it checks only the values of the strings, not their locations in memory. This means that if you call the equals() method to compare 2 String objects, then as long as the actual sequence of characters is equal, both objects are considered equal.

String obj1 = new String("xyz");
String obj2 = new String("xyz");
if(obj1.equals(obj2))
   System.out.printlln("obj1==obj2 is TRUE");
else
  System.out.println("obj1==obj2 is FALSE");

This code will output the following:

obj1==obj2 is TRUE

Answer 4

Here is a simple interpretation about your problem:

== (equal to) used to evaluate arithmetic expression

where as

equals() method used to compare string

Therefore, it its better to use == for numeric operations & equals() method for String related operations. So, for comparison of objects the equals() method would be right choice.

Answer 5

== operator compares two object references to check whether they refer to same instance. This also, will return true on successful match.for example

public class Example{
public static void main(String[] args){
String s1 = "Java";
String s2 = "Java";
String s3 = new string ("Java");
test(Sl == s2)     //true
test(s1 == s3)      //false
}}

above example == is a reference comparison i.e. both objects point to the same memory location

String equals() is evaluates to the comparison of values in the objects.

   public class EqualsExample1{
   public static void main(String args[]){
   String s = "Hell";
   String s1 =new string( "Hello");
   String s2 =new string( "Hello");
   s1.equals(s2);    //true
    s.equals(s1) ;   //false
    }}

above example It compares the content of the strings. It will return true if string matches, else returns false.