They’re two completely different things. ==
compares the object reference, if any, contained by a variable. .equals()
checks to see if two objects are equal according to their contract for what equality means. It’s entirely possible for two distinct object instances to be “equal” according to their contract. And then there’s the minor detail that since equals
is a method, if you try to invoke it on a null
reference, you’ll get a NullPointerException
.
For instance:
class Foo {
private int data;
Foo(int d) {
this.data = d;
}
@Override
public boolean equals(Object other) {
if (other == null || other.getClass() != this.getClass()) {
return false;
}
return ((Foo)other).data == this.data;
}
/* In a real class, you'd override `hashCode` here as well */
}
Foo f1 = new Foo(5);
Foo f2 = new Foo(5);
System.out.println(f1 == f2);
// outputs false, they're distinct object instances
System.out.println(f1.equals(f2));
// outputs true, they're "equal" according to their definition
Foo f3 = null;
System.out.println(f3 == null);
// outputs true, `f3` doesn't have any object reference assigned to it
System.out.println(f3.equals(null));
// Throws a NullPointerException, you can't dereference `f3`, it doesn't refer to anything
System.out.println(f1.equals(f3));
// Outputs false, since `f1` is a valid instance but `f3` is null,
// so one of the first checks inside the `Foo#equals` method will
// disallow the equality because it sees that `other` == null