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Overloaded equals

ID: java/wrong-equals-signature
Kind: problem
Security severity: 
Severity: error
Precision: medium
Tags:
   - reliability
   - correctness
Query suites:
   - java-security-and-quality.qls

Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository

Classes that define an equals method whose parameter type is not Object overload the Object.equals method instead of overriding it. This may not be intended.

Recommendation

To override the Object.equals method, the parameter of the equals method must have type Object.

Example

In the following example, the definition of class BadPoint does not override the Object.equals method. This means that p.equals(q) resolves to the default definition of Object.equals and returns false. Class GoodPoint correctly overrides Object.equals, so that r.equals(s) returns true.

class BadPoint {
    int x;
    int y;

    BadPoint(int x, int y) {
        this.x = x;
        this.y = y;
    }

    // overloaded equals method -- should be avoided
    public boolean equals(BadPoint q) {
        return x == q.x && y == q.y;
    }
}

BadPoint p = new BadPoint(1, 2);
Object q = new BadPoint(1, 2);
boolean badEquals = p.equals(q); // evaluates to false

class GoodPoint {
    int x;
    int y;

    GoodPoint(int x, int y) {
        this.x = x;
        this.y = y;
    }

    // correctly overrides Object.equals(Object)
    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        if (obj != null && getClass() == obj.getClass()) {
            GoodPoint q = (GoodPoint)obj;
            return x == q.x && y == q.y;
        }
        return false;
    }
}

GoodPoint r = new GoodPoint(1, 2);
Object s = new GoodPoint(1, 2);
boolean goodEquals = r.equals(s); // evaluates to true

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