It’s entirely possible for two distinct object instances to be “equal” according to their contract. And then there’s the minor detail that since equals is a method, if you try to invoke it on a null reference, you’ll get a NullPointerException .
It’s entirely possible for two distinct object instances to be “equal” according to their contract. And then there’s the minor detail that since equals is a method, if you try to invoke it on a null reference, you’ll get a NullPointerException .