Using the equals and Hashcode methods of an Object?

[PavanPL KalyanK]

  

class Employee
{
	int age;
String Name;
	@Override
	public int hashCode() {
		final int prime = 31;
		int result = 1;
		result = prime * result + ((Name == null) ? 0 : Name.hashCode());
		result = prime * result + age;
		return result;
	}
	@Override
	public boolean equals(Object obj) {
		if (this == obj)
			return true;
		if (obj == null)
			return false;
		if (getClass() != obj.getClass())
			return false;
		Employee other = (Employee) obj;
		if (Name == null) {
			if (other.Name != null)
				return false;
		} else if (!Name.equals(other.Name))
			return false;
		if (age != other.age)
			return false;
		return true;
	}

		
}
  

I have an Employee Object with Age and Name as parameters , i had generated equals and hashcode methods for this Object to avoid duplicates.

Can anybody please tell me where these two methods will be useful actually ??

what i think is that while doing (rs.next()) on to DAO layer and setting the Bean in a List , or am i wrong will this be used somewhere else ?? Please tell me .

[Martijn Verburg]

It can be used by your code directly and also in other areas such as the Comparators and searching for objects in Lists etc.