Does list contain equals in Java?

To check if ArrayList contains a specific object or element, use ArrayList. contains() method . You can call contains() method on the ArrayList, with the element passed as argument to the method. contains() method returns true if the object is present in the list, else the method returns false.

An ArrayList is just an object, so we will create it like any other object – calling “new” and storing a pointer to the new ArrayList. When first created, the ArrayList is empty – it does not contain any objects . Traditionally, the things stored inside of a collection are called “elements” in the collection.

If you look at the Javadoc for List at the contains method you will see that it uses the equals() method to evaluate if two objects are the same .

To check if an ArrayList object contains the specified element we can use the contains(Object o) method . This method returns a boolean true when the specified element is found in the ArrayList , otherwise return false .