- Does that mean that you can apply the methods of class Object to any object? Yes, indeed, it does.
- Sometimes you may want to override these methods to make them more useful.
- equals() returns true if the two objects point to the same area in memory. You may want to override this to return true if the instance fields of the object are equal. Remember, in a case like String, you can have two different objects with the same values. Overriding equals() allows you to make it more useful. Example: object1.equals(object2);
- toString() By default, Java will return the name of the class and the value of its instance fields in square brackets. Usually you will want something more readable. toString() is often used in System.out.println and the like. Overriding toString is easy. For example, our Quarters object might override it like so:
- As you see, you end up with something with more meaning to the user.
- Any time the + operator is used with a class, toString() is automatically called. And, the Sytem.out.println() method calls the toString() method on any object. So, as you can see, this is a very important method!
- getClass() returns the class of an object. Pretty simple, better leave this one alone.
public String toString() {
return getClass().getName() + " has the following due dates: quiz - " + quiz.toString() + " midterm - " + midterm.toString() + " projectOne - " + projectOne.toString();
}
