How is it Possible For Two String Objects With Identical Values Not to be Equal Under The == Operator?

The == operator compares two objects to determine if they are the same object in memory. It is possible for two String objects to have the same value, but located indifferent areas of memory.

In Java, the == operator compares the references of objects, not their actual content. When you use == to compare two String objects, it checks whether the two references point to the same memory location, not whether the content of the strings is the same.

Here’s an example:

java
String str1 = new String("Hello");
String str2 = new String("Hello");
System.out.println(str1 == str2); // This will be false

Even though the contents of str1 and str2 are identical (“Hello”), the == operator evaluates to false because str1 and str2 refer to different objects in memory.

To compare the content of two String objects, you should use the equals() method:

java
System.out.println(str1.equals(str2)); // This will be true

The equals() method compares the actual contents of the strings and returns true if they are equal.