Why does String define the equals( ) method in Java? Can’t I just use ==?

Question

Give proper explanation.

I am new in Java but I have knowledge about C programming.

Answer 1

The equals() method is defined in String class in order to test whether two strings values are same sequence of characters. The method is for exclusively testing string objects, but not any other objects.

The operator ‘==’ always compares the variables but not objects. The ‘reference variables’ are compared with ‘==’, but not the objects. In terms of strings, the ‘==’ operator always compares the references and not the ‘character sequences’.

Answer 2

Any class that overrides "hashcode" method from the Object class has to override "equals" method. The reason being two objects that have the same hashcode might not be equal. For ex: "STOP" & "stop" may result in the same hashcode but they are not equal.
This is the reason why String class overrides equals method because equals method allows you to test for equality of the objects.