equals() needed to use get() methods

eladm · **Joined:** Tue May 10, 2005 4:18 am **Posts:** 29

Hello all
I tried looking for an explanations for this , but couldnt find.

Is it true that the only way my equals() method will work is when I compare fields using their "get.. ()" methods rather than the fields themselves ?
So this will NOT work :

Code:

public boolean equals(final Object other) {
      if (!(other instanceof Address))
         return false;
      MyObject castOther = (MyObject) other;
      return this.foo == castOther.foo;
}

and this will work :

Code:

public boolean equals(final Object other) {
      if (!(other instanceof Address))
         return false;
      MyObject castOther = (MyObject) other;
      return this.getFoo() == castOther.getFoo();

??

Thank you

max · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2005 4:46 am

yes if your objects a proxies - proxies can only intercept methods not field access (unless you want to use build time byte code enhancement)

max · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2005 4:47 am

yes if your objects a proxies - proxies can only intercept methods not field access (unless you want to use build time byte code enhancement)

eladm · **Joined:** Tue May 10, 2005 4:18 am **Posts:** 29

Thank you Max, for your reply.
I ask because I tried using both CodeSugar and Common4E plugins for Eclipse, to help me generate the equals and hashCode methods.

They both compare fields - which caused me some days of frustrated debugging to find the origin for some weird bugs...
(BTW , .getClass() comparison doesn't work as well... Same reason I guess)

Does the Hibernate community recommend on a tool to do this ? I already have my classes coded, so re-generating with hibernate-tools from the mapping files is a bit of a headache for me..

Or maybe me question should be - do you plan to have the hibernate-tools support just equals / hashCode method generation on an already built classes ?

Thanks

max · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2005 8:13 am

well - you could build it into the eclipse plugins i guess....wanna contribute it ? ;)

jamie_dainton · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:29 am

Depends.

I feel that if you use tools to generate hashcode and equals you need a way of determining which properties to inspect. So annotations would seem the most likely way to go, or maybe inspecting the hbm files and using that.

As for how it would work, I'd expect it to be a simple case of right clicking and choosing "Insert Hashcode/Equals".

max · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:59 pm

the hibernate eclipse tools knows which properties should be used in equals...