When you compare two objects in Java and you use the == such as a == b Java will look at the ADDRESS that is in a and the ADDRESS that is in B and see if they are the same. This is very valid if you want to see if both a and b point to the exact same object. However if you want to see if the object pointed at by a and the object pointed at by b have 2 objects which are exactly ALIKE then you need to use equals(). Be carefull though because the Object class method "equals()" just uses the == comparison and not all classes override that method to privide meaningfull equals() methods. (Note: the situation above also explains why there are clone() methods instead of just saying a = b which would just give you two variables containing the address of one object). [This message has been edited by Cindy Glass (edited December 11, 2000).]
"JavaRanch, where the deer and the Certified play" - David O'Meara
I agree. Here's the link: http://ej-technologies/jprofiler - if it wasn't for jprofiler, we would need to
run our stuff on 16 servers instead of 3.
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