Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
Why do we have equals() and equalsIgnoreCase() as two different methods, when equals() could have been overloaded with a special ignoreCase argument to provide equalsIgnoreCase() functionality?
The method
equals()is inherited fromObject, so its signature should not be changed.equals()can often be used without actually knowing the concrete class of the object, e.g. when iterating through a collection of objects (especially before Java 5 generics). So then you wouldn’t even see the otherequals()without downcasting your object toStringfirst.This was a design choice from the creators of Java to make the idiom of using
equals()usable exactly the same way for all objects.Moreover, IMO
is more readable, thus less error-prone than
Of course, in your own classes you are free to add an
equals()with different signature (on top of the standardequals(), that is).