Inheritance - Java Concepts - page 644

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C OMMON E RROR 10.6: Defining the equals Method
with the Wrong Parameter
Type

Consider the following, seemingly simpler, version of the equals method for
the Coin class:

public boolean equals( Coin other) // DonȐt do this!
{
return name.equals(other.name) && value ==
other.value;
}

Here, the parameter of the equals method has the type Coin , not Object .

Unfortunately, this method does not override the equals method in the
Object class. Instead, the Coin class now has two different equals methods:

boolean equals(Coin other) // Defined in the Coin class
boolean equals(Object otherObject) // Inherited from the
Object class

This is error-prone because the wrong equals method can be called. For
example, consider these variable definitions:

Coin aCoin = new Coin(0.25, ÐquarterÑ);
Object anObject = new Coin(0.25, ÐquarterÑ);

The call aCoin.equals (anObject) calls the second equals method,
which returns false .

The remedy is to ensure that you use the Object type for the explicit parameter
of the equals method.