When to override the equals method

[Doshi Milan]

Dear friends,
I wanred to know when should one override the equals() method.If you override the equals() method, should you do anything else.
Thanks in advance,
Reagrds,
Milan

[Thomas Paul]

Actually every class should override the equals and hashcode methods. This insures that objects of that class will be properly stored in hash and set objects.

[Ron Newman]

I wouldn't say "every class" -- not every class has a meaningful notion of semantic equality between different instances.
But if you do override equals(), you MUST override hashCode(), and adhere to the contract: equal objects have equal hash codes (but unequal objects don't necessarily have unequal hash codes)
[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Newman ]

[Dirk Schreckmann]

You may want to take a look at The October Newsletter.