Name: sl110371 Date: 07/24/2000


java version "1.3.0"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.3.0-C)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.3.0-C, mixed mode)

According to the documentation for java.lang.Object.equals(), the equals method
is supposed to be symmetric. Which means x.equals(y) should return true if and
only if y.equals(x) returns true. In javax.swing.text.DefaultCaret, this is
violated. Here's the code to reproduce.

Rectangle rect = new Rectangle(1, 2, 3, 4);
javax.swing.text.DefaultCaret dc = new javax.swing.text.DefaultCaret();
dc.setSize(3, 4);
dc.setLocation(1, 2);
System.out.println("rect.equals(dc)=" + rect.equals(dc));
System.out.println("dc.equals(rect)=" + dc.equals(rect));

Run it and you'll get:
rect.equals(dc)=true
dc.equals(rect)=false

This is obviously contradictory to the java.lang.Object documentation. This
occurs because Rectangle compares x, y, width & height. DefaultCaret does a
reference equality. And since DefaultCaret extends Rectangle, voila!

The bad part is whether or not this behavior is correct. If you override
equals() in a class, and then you subclass it and add additional data members
and override equals(), you get what I just explained above. If Rectangle did a
obj.getClass().equals(Rectangle.class) then the behavior would be correct,
however all subclasses of Rectangle would lose that equals functionality.

So generally, if B is a subclass of A, and A defines equals() to check for data
equality, and B does the same but also checks its additional data, then using
only the instanceof operator violates the rule for symmetry in equals(). The
worst part is if you have interface A and interface B, which extends A (data
similar to the class example). And you have a corresponding implementation for
each that overrides equals(). If you want to preserve checking equality at the
interface level only, then you have to analyze the full class hierarchy
structure for every passed in object to make sure it doesn't implement a
subinterface of you that would violate the symmetry rule.

I think I've made my point, and I'd love some feedback on this because I really
don't have a good answer to this problem yet.
(Review ID: 107469)
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