What is the difference between == and the equals () method?

The equals() method compares two strings , and returns true if the strings are equal, and false if not.

In simple words, == checks if both objects point to the same memory location whereas . equals() evaluates to the comparison of values in the objects . If a class does not override the equals method, then by default, it uses the equals(Object o) method of the closest parent class that has overridden this method.

This is how every class has a toString() method : since Object has a toString() method, then ‘children’ of Object inherit a toString() method, the children of children of Object inherit a toString() method, and so on. So every class ‘automatically’ gets a toString() method by inheritance.