简单地说，Object中的equals-方法检查引用是否相等，当属性相等时，类的两个实例在语义上仍然相等。例如，当将对象放入使用等号和hashcode(如HashMap和Set)的容器中时，这很重要。假设我们有这样一个类:

public class Foo {
    String id;
    String whatevs;

    Foo(String id, String whatevs) {
        this.id = id;
        this.whatevs = whatevs;
    }
}

我们创建了两个具有相同id的实例:

Foo a = new Foo("id", "something");
Foo b = new Foo("id", "something else");

如果不重写等号，我们将得到:

A.equals (b)为假，因为它们是两个不同的实例 a.equals(a)为真，因为它是同一个实例 b.equals(b)为真，因为它是同一个实例

正确吗?也许吧，如果这是你想要的。但假设我们希望具有相同id的对象是相同的对象，不管它是否是两个不同的实例。我们重写等号(和hashcode):

public class Foo {
    String id;
    String whatevs;

    Foo(String id, String whatevs) {
        this.id = id;
        this.whatevs = whatevs;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object other) {
        if (other instanceof Foo) {
            return ((Foo)other).id.equals(this.id);   
        }
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return this.id.hashCode();
    }
}

至于实现equals和hashcode，我建议使用Guava的helper方法

加上@Lombo的答案

什么时候需要重写equals() ?

Object的equals()的默认实现是

public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        return (this == obj);
}

这意味着两个对象将被认为是相等的，只有当他们有相同的内存地址，这将是真的，只有当你是 比较对象本身。

但是，如果两个对象对一个对象具有相同的值，则可能认为它们是相同的 或更多的属性(参考@Lombo的回答中给出的例子)。

所以在这些情况下，你会重写equals()你会给出你自己的相等条件。

我已经成功地实现了equals()，它工作得很好。那么为什么他们要求重写hashCode()呢?

好。只要不在用户定义的类上使用基于“Hash”的集合，就没问题。 但是在将来的某个时候，你可能想要使用HashMap或HashSet，如果你没有覆盖和“正确实现”hashCode()，这些基于Hash的集合将无法正常工作。

只覆盖等于(除了@Lombo的答案)

myMap.put(first,someValue)
myMap.contains(second); --> But it should be the same since the key are the same.But returns false!!! How?

首先，HashMap检查second的hashCode是否与First相同。 只有当值相同时，它才会继续检查同一桶中的相等性。

但这里这两个对象的hashCode是不同的(因为它们具有不同的内存地址-与默认实现不同)。 因此，它甚至不会关心是否相等。

如果在重写的equals()方法中有断点，那么如果它们有不同的hashcode，它就不会介入。 contains()检查hashCode()，只有当它们相同时才调用equals()方法。

为什么我们不能让HashMap检查所有桶是否相等呢?所以我没有必要重写hashCode() !!

那么你就错过了基于哈希的集合的要点。 考虑以下几点:

Your hashCode() implementation : intObject%9.

以下是以桶的形式存储的密钥。

Bucket 1 : 1,10,19,... (in thousands)
Bucket 2 : 2,20,29...
Bucket 3 : 3,21,30,...
...

假设，您想知道映射是否包含键10。 你想把所有的桶都搜一遍吗?或“是否只搜索一个桶?”

根据hashCode，可以确定如果存在10，则它必须存在于Bucket 1中。 所以只有桶1会被搜索!!

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.)

HashMap和HashSet等集合使用对象的hashcode值来确定该对象应该如何存储在集合中，然后再次使用hashcode来定位该对象 在它的收藏中。

哈希检索是一个两步过程:

找到正确的桶(使用hashCode()) 在桶中搜索正确的元素(使用equals())

下面是一个关于为什么我们应该重写equals()和hashcode()的小例子。

考虑一个Employee类，它有两个字段:年龄和名字。

public class Employee {

    String name;
    int age;

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

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public int getAge() {
        return age;
    }

    public void setAge(int age) {
        this.age = age;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        if (obj == this)
            return true;
        if (!(obj instanceof Employee))
            return false;
        Employee employee = (Employee) obj;
        return employee.getAge() == this.getAge()
                && employee.getName() == this.getName();
    }

    // commented    
    /*  @Override
        public int hashCode() {
            int result=17;
            result=31*result+age;
            result=31*result+(name!=null ? name.hashCode():0);
            return result;
        }
     */
}

现在创建一个类，将Employee对象插入到HashSet中并测试该对象是否存在。

public class ClientTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Employee employee = new Employee("rajeev", 24);
        Employee employee1 = new Employee("rajeev", 25);
        Employee employee2 = new Employee("rajeev", 24);

        HashSet<Employee> employees = new HashSet<Employee>();
        employees.add(employee);
        System.out.println(employees.contains(employee2));
        System.out.println("employee.hashCode():  " + employee.hashCode()
        + "  employee2.hashCode():" + employee2.hashCode());
    }
}

它将打印以下内容:

false
employee.hashCode():  321755204  employee2.hashCode():375890482

现在uncomment hashcode()方法，执行相同的方法，输出将是:

true
employee.hashCode():  -938387308  employee2.hashCode():-938387308

Now can you see why if two objects are considered equal, their hashcodes must also be equal? Otherwise, you'd never be able to find the object since the default hashcode method in class Object virtually always comes up with a unique number for each object, even if the equals() method is overridden in such a way that two or more objects are considered equal. It doesn't matter how equal the objects are if their hashcodes don't reflect that. So one more time: If two objects are equal, their hashcodes must be equal as well.

我正在研究解释“如果你只覆盖hashCode，那么当你调用myMap.put(first,someValue)时，它首先接受，计算它的hashCode并将其存储在给定的桶中。然后，当你调用myMap.put(first,someOtherValue)时，它应该根据Map文档将first替换为second，因为它们是相等的(根据我们的定义)。”：

我认为第二次添加myMap时应该是第二个对象比如myMap。put(second,someOtherValue)

为了帮助你检查重复的对象，我们需要一个自定义的等号和hashCode。

Since hashcode always returns a number its always fast to retrieve an object using a number rather than an alphabetic key. How will it do? Assume we created a new object by passing some value which is already available in some other object. Now the new object will return the same hash value as of another object because the value passed is same. Once the same hash value is returned, JVM will go to the same memory address every time and if in case there are more than one objects present for the same hash value it will use equals() method to identify the correct object.