Scribd
Upload
3 views

Hashcode Equals

The document explains the equals() and hashCode() methods in Java, which are essential for object comparison and hashing. It outlines the purpose, syntax, and general contracts for both methods, emphasizing the need to override both when implementing custom equality logic. An example is provided to illustrate how these methods work in practice with string objects.

Uploaded by

Supriya Nevewani
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
3 views

Hashcode Equals

The document explains the equals() and hashCode() methods in Java, which are essential for object comparison and hashing. It outlines the purpose, syntax, and general contracts for both methods, emphasizing the need to override both when implementing custom equality logic. An example is provided to illustrate how these methods work in practice with string objects.

Uploaded by

Supriya Nevewani
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Equals() and Hashcode() in Java

The equals() and hashcode() are the two important methods provided by
the Object class for comparing objects. Since the Object class is the
parent class for all Java objects, hence all objects inherit the default
implementation of these two methods. In this topic, we will see the
detailed description of equals() and hashcode() methods, how they are
related to each other, and how we can implement these two methods
in Java

Java equals()
o The java equals() is a method of lang.Object class, and it is used to
compare two objects.
o To compare two objects that whether they are the same, it
compares the values of both the object's attributes.
o By default, two objects will be the same only if stored in the same
memory location.

Syntax:

1. public boolean equals(Object obj)

Parameter:
obj: It takes the reference object as the parameter, with which we need to
make the comparison.

Returns:
It returns the true if both the objects are the same, else returns false.

General Contract of equals() method


There are some general principles defined by Java SE

that must be followed while implementing the equals() method in Java. The equals() method
must be:
o reflexive: An object x must be equal to itself, which means, for object
x, equals(x) should return true.
o symmetric: for two given objects x and y, x.equals(y) must return true if
and only if equals(x) returns true.
o transitive: for any objects x, y, and z, if x.equals(y) returns true and
y.equals(z) returns true, then x.equals(z) should return true.
o consistent: for any objects x and y, the value of x.equals(y) should
change, only if the property in equals() changes.
o For any object x, the equals(null) must return false.

Java hashcode()
o A hashcode is an integer value associated with every object in Java,
facilitating the hashing in hash tables.
o To get this hashcode value for an object, we can use the hashcode()
method in Java. It is the means hashcode() method that returns the
integer hashcode value of the given object.
o Since this method is defined in the Object class, hence it is inherited by
user-defined classes also.
o The hashcode() method returns the same hash value when called on two
objects, which are equal according to the equals() method. And if the
objects are unequal, it usually returns different hash values.

Syntax:

1. public int hashCode()

Returns:
It returns the hash code value for the given objects.

Contract for hashcode() method in Java


o If two objects are the same as per the equals(Object) method, then if we
call the hashCode() method on each of the two objects, it must provide the
same integer result.

Note: As per the Java documentation, both the methods should be overridden to
get the complete equality mechanism; using equals() alone is not sufficient. It
means, if we override the equals(), we must override the hashcode() method.

Example:

class Test_hash_equal{
public static void main(String[] args){
String a = "Andrew";
String b = "Andrew";

if(a.equals(b)){ //checking the equality


of objects using equals() methods
System.out.println("a & b are equal va
riables, and their respective hashvalues are:"
+ " "+ a.hashCode() + " & " + b.hashCode());
}

String c = "Maria";
String d= "Julie";

if(!c.equals(d)){ //checking the equality of objects using equals() method


System.out.println("\nc & d are Un-equal variables, and their respective hash
values are:" + " "+ c.hashCode() + " & " + d.hashCode());

}
}
}

Output:

a & b are equal variables, and their respective hash values are: 1965574029
& 1965574029

c & d are Un-equal variables, and their respective hash values are:
74113750 & 71933245

In the above example, we have taken two 4 variables, out of which two
are equal, and two are unequal. First, we have compared the objects
whether they are equal or unequal, and based on that, printed their hash
values.

You might also like