equals() for String, StringBuilder and StringBuffer

Rule of equality in java:

Equals method should be used for checking the logical equality of objects of a class but it does not mean that every class is a candidate for overridden equals method

So if you go and see the source code of StringBuffer/StringBuilder classes in Java, you will find that equals() method is not overridden but it is overridden in the String class.

public class Test{
 
    public static void main (String args[]) {
        String str1 = "abcd";
        String str2 = "abcd";
        System.out.println(str1.equals(str2));
         
        StringBuffer sb1 = new StringBuffer(str1);
        StringBuffer sb2 = new StringBuffer(str1);
        System.out.println(sb1.equals(sb2));
    }
}

Output:

true
false


For String objects, the logical equality would mean the contents of the string should be same.

For StringBuffer and StringBuilder we have following facts:

• Logical equality means that both objects were configured and assembled using the same String instance and not whether the contents of those String objects is same.
• The intended use of StringBuffer and StringBuilder is for maintaining a buffer of characters which may change with time.

Both the above statements contradict with each other because the String object being used for building a StringBuffer/StringBuilder object can change very frequently and it does not make any sense to compare the StringBuffer/StringBuilder objects.

This is the reason that the equals() method is not overridden in StringBuffer/StringBuilder classes.

It should be noted that there a misconception that is going around the developer community regarding the above reason which says that then why an ArrayList/Date overrides the equals() method as it too can change with time. Here are a few reasons to clear that thought which in fact is natural:

• StringBuffer/StringBuilder classes are intended to be used as temporary buffer and change more frequently than classes like ArrayList and Date
• While one may like to perform various operations like serialization, making clones, being used as keys in collections or stored in database but one is very unlikely to perform similar operations with StringBuffer/StringBuilder classes.

Also String may be treated as value object, where value equality means, object equality. Read here for more on value objects.