身份不是平等。

= operator ==测试标识符。 equals(Object obj)方法比较相等性测试(即我们需要通过重写方法来告诉相等)

为什么我需要重写Java中的equals和hashCode方法?

首先我们要理解等号法的用法。

为了识别两个对象之间的差异，我们需要重写equals方法。

例如:

Customer customer1=new Customer("peter");
Customer customer2=customer1;
customer1.equals(customer2); // returns true by JVM. i.e. both are refering same Object
------------------------------
Customer customer1=new Customer("peter");
Customer customer2=new Customer("peter");
customer1.equals(customer2); //return false by JVM i.e. we have two different peter customers.

------------------------------
Now I have overriden Customer class equals method as follows:
 @Override
    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        if (this == obj)   // it checks references
            return true;
        if (obj == null) // checks null
            return false;
        if (getClass() != obj.getClass()) // both object are instances of same class or not
            return false;
        Customer other = (Customer) obj;
        if (name == null) {
            if (other.name != null)
                return false;
        } else if (!name.equals(other.name)) // it again using bulit in String object equals to identify the difference 
            return false;
        return true; 
    }
Customer customer1=new Customer("peter");
Customer customer2=new Customer("peter");
Insteady identify the Object equality by JVM, we can do it by overring equals method.
customer1.equals(customer2);  // returns true by our own logic

现在hashCode方法很容易理解了。

hashCode生成整数，以便将对象存储在HashMap、HashSet等数据结构中。

假设我们有如上所述的override equals Customer方法，

customer1.equals(customer2);  // returns true by our own logic

在处理数据结构时，我们将对象存储在桶中(桶是文件夹的花哨名称)。如果我们使用内置哈希技术，对于以上两个客户，它会生成两个不同的哈希码。所以我们把相同的对象存储在两个不同的地方。为了避免这类问题，我们也应该基于以下原则重写hashCode方法。

不相等的实例可能具有相同的hashcode。 相同的实例应该返回相同的hashcode。

你必须重写hashCode()在每个 重写equals()的类。失败 这样做会导致违反 总合同 Object.hashCode()，它将防止 你的类不能正常运行 结合所有基于哈希的 集合，包括HashMap， HashSet和Hashtable。 摘自Joshua Bloch的《Effective Java》

通过一致地定义equals()和hashCode()，可以提高类作为基于散列的集合中的键的可用性。正如hashCode的API文档所解释的那样:“支持此方法是为了受益于诸如java.util.Hashtable所提供的哈希表。”

关于如何有效地实现这些方法的问题，最好的答案是建议你阅读《Effective Java》的第3章。

它在使用值对象时很有用。以下摘自Portland Pattern Repository:

Examples of value objects are things like numbers, dates, monies and strings. Usually, they are small objects which are used quite widely. Their identity is based on their state rather than on their object identity. This way, you can have multiple copies of the same conceptual value object. So I can have multiple copies of an object that represents the date 16 Jan 1998. Any of these copies will be equal to each other. For a small object such as this, it is often easier to create new ones and move them around rather than rely on a single object to represent the date. A value object should always override .equals() in Java (or = in Smalltalk). (Remember to override .hashCode() as well.)

常见错误如下例所示。

public class Car {

    private String color;

    public Car(String color) {
        this.color = color;
    }

    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        if(obj==null) return false;
        if (!(obj instanceof Car))
            return false;   
        if (obj == this)
            return true;
        return this.color.equals(((Car) obj).color);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Car a1 = new Car("green");
        Car a2 = new Car("red");

        //hashMap stores Car type and its quantity
        HashMap<Car, Integer> m = new HashMap<Car, Integer>();
        m.put(a1, 10);
        m.put(a2, 20);
        System.out.println(m.get(new Car("green")));
    }
}

绿色的车没有找到

2. hashCode()引起的问题

该问题是由未覆盖的hashCode()方法引起的。equals()和hashCode()之间的契约是:

如果两个对象相等，那么它们必须具有相同的哈希码。 如果两个对象具有相同的哈希码，则它们可能相等，也可能不相等。 公共int hashCode(){ 返回this.color.hashCode (); ｝

在下面的例子中，如果您注释掉Person类中equals或hashcode的覆盖，此代码将无法查找Tom的订单。使用哈希码的默认实现可能会导致哈希表查找失败。

下面是一个简化的代码，它按Person提取人们的订单。Person被用作哈希表中的键。

public class Person {
    String name;
    int age;
    String socialSecurityNumber;

    public Person(String name, int age, String socialSecurityNumber) {
        this.name = name;
        this.age = age;
        this.socialSecurityNumber = socialSecurityNumber;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object p) {
        //Person is same if social security number is same

        if ((p instanceof Person) && this.socialSecurityNumber.equals(((Person) p).socialSecurityNumber)) {
            return true;
        } else {
            return false;
        }

    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {        //I am using a hashing function in String.java instead of writing my own.
        return socialSecurityNumber.hashCode();
    }
}


public class Order {
    String[]  items;

    public void insertOrder(String[]  items)
    {
        this.items=items;
    }

}



import java.util.Hashtable;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

       Person p1=new Person("Tom",32,"548-56-4412");
        Person p2=new Person("Jerry",60,"456-74-4125");
        Person p3=new Person("Sherry",38,"418-55-1235");

        Order order1=new Order();
        order1.insertOrder(new String[]{"mouse","car charger"});

        Order order2=new Order();
        order2.insertOrder(new String[]{"Multi vitamin"});

        Order order3=new Order();
        order3.insertOrder(new String[]{"handbag", "iPod"});

        Hashtable<Person,Order> hashtable=new Hashtable<Person,Order>();
        hashtable.put(p1,order1);
        hashtable.put(p2,order2);
        hashtable.put(p3,order3);

       //The line below will fail if Person class does not override hashCode()
       Order tomOrder= hashtable.get(new Person("Tom", 32, "548-56-4412"));
        for(String item:tomOrder.items)
        {
            System.out.println(item);
        }
    }
}

The methods equals and hashcode are defined in the object class. By default if the equals method returns true, then the system will go further and check the value of the hash code. If the hash code of the 2 objects is also same only then the objects will be considered as same. So if you override only equals method, then even though the overridden equals method indicates 2 objects to be equal , the system defined hashcode may not indicate that the 2 objects are equal. So we need to override hash code as well.