Java’s equals() and hashcode() are two methods that work together to verify if two objects have the same value. You can use them to make object comparisons easy and efficient in your Java programs. In ...

public boolean equals(Object obj) Indicates whether some other object is "equal to" this one. The equals method implements an equivalence relation on non-null object ...

If you are fortunate enough to be using JDK 7, the newly available Objects class is the obvious (at least to me) choice for implementing the “common” Java object ...