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Alejandro Salas
2,365 PointsJava: Difference between comparing == and equals
What is the difference between checking if two String variables match using == and with the equals method.
2 Answers
Mauro Teixeira
3,727 PointsTo complement, the String.equals() method will actually look "inside" the objects for their value and compare the value of both objects, not the memory position like == does.
equals() is a method inherited from Object, so if you decide to create your own class, you can Override the default equals() so that you can define a behavior on how two objects of your class can be compared. For example, if you define a class Book with properties "name" and "author", you may want to override the equals() method to compare the name and author of both objects being compared.
Andrew Hinton
20,616 PointsThe '==' operator will compare the memory locations of two different strings, not the strings themselves. '==' should only be used for primitive types like ints, chars, etc. If it's an object like a string you'll want to use .equals().