Most applications require an extensive hashing implementation, and writing a good hashing algorithm is always a tedious job. To get rid of this ugly and tedious hashCode and equals implementation, Java introduced an API called java.util.Objects in Java 7, which contains a set of utility methods and is useful in combination with Object instances.

Now let's see an example to understand this cool feature.

Here, Person is a class that needs hashCode() and equals() method implementation.

Prior to Java 7

Using Java 6, we generate the equals() and hashCode() methods using the Eclipse IDE.

Person.java

package hashingDemo;

/**
 * @author arun.pandey
 */
public class Person {
  String ssn;
  String name;

  public Person(){}

  public Person(String ssn, String name){
    this.ssn = ssn;
    this.name = name;
  }

  public String getId() {
    return ssn;
  }

  public void setId(String id) {
    this.ssn = id;
  } 

  public String getName() {
    return name;
  }

  public void setName(String name) {
    this.name = name;
  }

  /* (non-Javadoc)
 * @see java.lang.Object#hashCode()
 */
  @Override
  public int hashCode() {
    final int prime = 31;
    int result = 1;

    result = prime * result + ((name == null) ? 0 : name.hashCode());
    result = prime * result + ((ssn == null) ? 0 : ssn.hashCode());
    return result;
  }

  /* (non-Javadoc)
 * @see java.lang.Object#equals(java.lang.Object)
 */
  @Override
  public boolean equals(Object obj) {
    if (this == obj)
      return true;

    if (obj == null)
      return false;

    if (getClass() != obj.getClass())
      return false;

    Person other = (Person) obj;

    if (name == null) {
      if (other.name != null)
        return false;
    } else if (!name.equals(other.name))
      return false;

    if (ssn == null) {
      if (other.ssn != null)
        return false;
    } else if (!ssn.equals(other.ssn))
      return false;

    return true;
  }
}

Java 7 Implementation

Now let's see the same implementation using Java 7 (java.util.Objects) as below.

Person.java

package hashingDemo;

import java.util.Objects;

/**
 * @author arun.pandey
 */
public class Person {
  String ssn;
  String name;

  public Person(){}

  public Person(String ssn, String name){
    this.ssn = ssn;
    this.name = name;
  }

  public String getId() {
    return ssn;
  }
  public void setId(String id) {
    this.ssn = id;
  } 
  public String getName() {
    return name;
  }
  public void setName(String name) {
    this.name = name;
  }

  @Override
  public int hashCode() {
    return java.util.Objects.hash(getId(), getName());
  }

  @Override
  public boolean equals(Object obj){
    if (obj == this) {
      return true;
    } 

    if (obj instanceof Person) {
      Person other = (Person) obj; 
      return Objects.equals(ssn, other.ssn) && Objects.equals(name, other.name);
    } 
    return false;
  }
}

Test the code to evaluate the above implementation.

HashingTest.java

package hashingDemo;

import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
import org.junit.Test;
import junit.framework.Assert;

/**
 * @author arun.pandey
 */
public class HashingTest {
  public static final Log LOG = LogFactory.getLog(HashingTest.class);

  @Test
  public void testHashing() {

    Person person1 = new Person("xxxx123", "Person1");
    Person person2 = new Person("xxxx234", "Person2");

    LOG.info("person1 HashCode ==>> " +person1.hashCode());
    LOG.info("person2 HashCode ==>> " +person2.hashCode());

    Assert.assertFalse(person1.hashCode() == person2.hashCode());
    Assert.assertFalse("Both are same employee...", person1.equals(person2));

    Person person3 = new Person("xxxx567", "Person3");
    Person person4 = new Person("xxxx567", "Person4");

    LOG.info("person3 HashCode ==>> " +person3.hashCode());
    LOG.info("person4 HashCode ==>> " +person4.hashCode());

    Assert.assertEquals(person3.hashCode(), person4.hashCode()); 
    Assert.assertTrue("Both are not same employee...",person3.equals(person4));
  }
}

And test passed as expected. Try it in your next hashing and equals implementation to have better and cleaner code.

I hope this will add a nice feature to your coding. Happy learning!