Difference between == and .equals in Java.

Question

I know this has been covered but I\'ve seen inconsistent arguments here on SO.

So if I have:

String a = \"apple2e\";
String b = \"apple2e\";

System.         


        

Answer 1

'a' and 'b' are the same reference, the problem is you are not comparing a and b. You should expect

a==b? false

but you just get

false

This is because + takes precedence over == so what you have is

System.out.println(("a==b? " + a) == b);

In the same way you would expect the following to print true.

System.out.println(1 + 2 == 3);

What you need is

System.out.println("a==b? " + (a == b));