Comparing two byte arrays for equality

[Pho Tek]

Is there a utility class that provides for equality
comparison between 2 byte arrays ?

[Steve Deadsea]

How about using a method like this?

/**
 * compares the two given byte arrays for equality
 * 
 * @param b1 first byte array
 * @param b2 second byte array
 * @returns true if the arrays have the same contents, false otherwise.
 */
public static boolean equals(byte[] b1, byte[] b2){
  if (b1 == null && b2 == null){
    return true;
  }
  if (b1 == null | | b2 == null){
    return false;
  }
  if (b1.length != b2.length){
    return false;
  }
  for (int i=0; i<b1.length; i++){>
    if (b1[i] != b2[i]){
      return false;
    }
  }
  return true;
}

[Michael Fitzmaurice]

There is such a method in the java.util.Arrays class - its called 'equals' and takes the 2 byte arrays to be compared as arguments. The following is pasted straight from the API documentation:
equals
public static boolean equals(byte[] a,
byte[] a2)
Returns true if the two specified arrays of bytes are equal to one another. Two arrays are considered equal if both arrays contain the same number of elements, and all corresponding pairs of elements in the two arrays are equal. In other words, two arrays are equal if they contain the same elements in the same order. Also, two array references are considered equal if both are null.
Parameters:
a - one array to be tested for equality.
a2 - the other array to be tested for equality.
Returns:
true if the two arrays are equal.
Hope this helps
Michael

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