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5) Operators and Assignments

Objective 2)

Determine the result of applying the boolean equals(Object) method to objects of any combination of the classes java.lang.String java.lang.Boolean and java.lang.Object.

If (like me) you are from a background with Visual Basic, the idea of any sort of comparison apart from using some variation of the = operator may seem alien. "In the real world" this is particularly important with reference to Strings as they are so commonly used,however For the purpose of the exam you may get questions that ask about the equals operator with reference to Object references and Boolean. Note that the question asks about the Boolean class not the boolean primitive (from which you cannot invoke a method)

The difference between equals and ==

The equals method can be considered to perform a deep comparison of the value of an object, whereas the == operator performs a shallow comparison. The equals method compares what an object points to rather than the pointer itself (if we can admit that Java has pointers). This indirection may appear clear to C++ programmers but there is no direct comparison in Visual Basic. 

Using the equals method with String

The equals method returns a boolean primitive. This means it can be used to drive an if, while or other looping statement. It can be used where you would use the == operator with a primitive. The operation of the equal method and == operator has some strange side effects when used to compare Strings. This is one occasion when the immutable nature of Strings, and the way they are handled by Java, can be confusing. 

There are two ways of creating a String in Java. The one way does not use the new operator. Thus normally a String is created

String s = new String("Hello"); 

but a slightly shorter method can be used 

String s= "GoodBye"; 

Generally there is little difference between these two ways of creating strings, but the Exam may well ask questions that require you to know the difference. 

The creation of two strings with the same sequence of letters without the use of the new keyword will create pointers to the same String in the Java String pool. The String pool is a way Java conserves resources. To illustrate the effect of this 

String s = "Hello";  
String s2 = "Hello"; 
if (s==s2){  
    System.out.println("Equal without new operator");  
    }  
String t = new String("Hello");  
string u = new String("Hello"); 
if (t==u){  
    System.out.println("Equal with new operator");  
    }

From the previous objective you might expect that the first output "Equal without new operator" would never be seen as s and s2 are different objects, and the == operator tests what an object points to, not its value. However because of the way Java conserves resources by re-using identical strings that are created without the new operator s and s2 have the same "address" and the code does output the string 

"Equal without new operator" 

However with the second set of strings t and u, the new operator forces Java to create separate strings. Because the == operator only compares the address of the object, not the value, t and u have different addresses and thus the string "Equal with new operator" is never seen. 

 

The equals method applied to a String, however that String was created, performs a character by character comparison

The business of the use of the string pool and the difference between the use of == and the equals method is not obvious, particularly if you have a Visual Basic background. The best way to understand it is to create some examples for yourself to see how it works. Try it with various permutations of identical strings created with and without the new operator.  

Using the equals method with Boolean

The requirement to understand the use of the equals operator on java.lang.Boolean is a potential gotcha. Boolean is a wrapper object for the boolean primitive. It is an object and using equals on it will test 

According to the JDK documentation the equals method of the Boolean wrapper class 

"Returns true if and only if the argument is not null and is a Boolean object that contains the same boolean value as this object". 

eg 

Boolean b1 = new Boolean(true);  
Boolean b2 = new Boolean(true); 
if(b1.equals(b2)){  
    System.out.println("We are equal");  
    }
 

As a slight aside on the subject of boolean and Boolean, once you are familiar with the if operator in Java you will know you cannot perform the sort of implicit conversion to a boolean beloved of bearded C/C++ programmers. By this I mean 
 

int x =1; 
if(x){  
    //do something, but not in Java  
    }
 

This will not work in Java because the parameter for the if operator must be a boolean evaluation, and Java does not have the C/C++ concept whereby any non null value is considered to be true. However you may come across the following in Java 

boolean b1=true; 
if(b1){  
    //do something in java  
    }

Although this is rather bad programing practice it is syntactically correct, as the parameter for the if operation is a boolean

Using the equals method with Object

Due to the fundamental design of Java an instance of any class is also an instance of java.lang.Object. Testing with equals performs a test on the Object as a result of the return value of the toString() method. For an Object the toString method simply returns the memory address. Thus the result is the equivalent of performing a test using the == operator. As java is not designed to manipulate memory addresses or pointers this is not a particularly useful test.

Take the following example

public class MyParm{
public static void main(String argv[]){
        Object m1 = new Object();
        Object m2 = new Object();
        System.out.println(m1);
        System.out.println(m2);
        if (m1.equals(m2)){
               System.out.println("Equals");
                }else{
                System.out.println("Not Equals");
                }
        }                
}

If you attempt to compile and run this code you will get an output of

java.lang.Object@16c80b
java.lang.Object@16c80a

Not Equals

Those wierd values are memory addresses, and probably not what you want at all.

Questions

Question 1)

What will happen when you attempt to compile and run the following code?

public class MyParm{
public static void main(String argv[]){
        String s1= "One";
        String s2 = "One";
        if(s1.equals(s2)){
                System.out.println("String equals");
                }
        boolean b1 = true;
        boolean b2 = true;
        if(b1.equals(b2)){
                         System.out.println("true");
                         }
        }
}

1) Compile time error
2) No output
3) Only "String equals"
4) "String equals" followed by "true"

Question 2)

What will happen when you attempt to compile and run the following code?

String s1= "One";
String s2 = new String("One");
if(s1.equals(s2)){
               System.out.println("String equals");
          }
Boolean b1 = new Boolean(true);
Boolean b2 = new Boolean(true);
if(b1==b2){
          System.out.println("Boolean Equals");
   }

1) Compile time error
2) "String equals" only
3) "String equals" followed by "Boolean equals"
4) "Boolean equals" only

Question 3)

What will be the result of attempting to compile and run the following code?

        Object o1 = new Object();
        Object o2 = new Object();
        o1=o2;
        if(o1.equals(o2))
                System.out.println("Equals");
        }

1) Compile time error
2) "Equals"
3) No output
4) Run time error

Answers

Answer 1)

1) Compile time error

The line b1.equals() will cause an error because b1 is a primitive and primitives do not have any methods. If it had been created as the primitive wrapper Boolean then you could call the equals method.

Answer 2)

2) "String equals" only

Testing an instance of the Boolean primitive wrapper with the == operator simply tests the memory address.

Answer 3)

2) "Equals"

Because the one instance of Object has been assigned to the other with the line

o1=o2;

They now point to the same memory address and the test with the equals method will return true

Last updated
10 January 2000
copyright © Marcus Green 2000