Question

What’s the difference in STRING.equals("myValue") vs STRING == "myValue"?

I first used STRING == "myValue" but my IDE recommends to switch to using .equals(). Is there a specific benefit to doing this?

Answer 1

Yes. Using == only compares the reference values; the equals() function actually checks whether or not the string contents are identical.

String x = new String("foo");
String y = new String("foo");
System.out.println(x == y); // prints false
System.out.println(x.equals(y)); // prints true