Comparing strings using ==

[csmacf]

I'm newish to Java- hoping someone can explain this to me...
My understanding was that the equals method was necessary for comparing strings, because == compared the objects, not the literals. How come the code below returns true for c?
If I declare a and b using String a= new String("hi") instead, then c is false.
I thought that String a="hi" did the same thing as String a= new String("hi")?

Any help would be most appreciated! Thanks.

public class TryEquals{
    public static void main(String [] args){
        String a="hi";
        String b="hi";
        boolean c=(a==b);
        System.out.println(c);
        }
}

[Old Pedant]

Sting *LITERALS* are always allocated once, only, out of a static pool.

So what you have *really* done here is equivalent this:

    System.createStringLiteral("hi");
    a = System.getStringFromLiteralPool("hi");
    b = System.getStringFromLiteralPool("hi");

so a and b are *really* referring to *EXACTLY* the same object. And so the == operator really is testing object equivalence!

FWIW, you actually *can* force Java to see a pair of dynamically created strings as the same object, if they contain the same characters. You have to call the intern() method and then use the returned reference.

Here, look at this:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/1....g.html#intern()

Essentially, *all* string literals are automatically returned via hidden calls to intern().

[csmacf]

Wow- that's really helpful. Thanks for taking the time. I had looked at the String reference you cited, but I doubt I would have ever found it.