In Java, why must equals() and hashCode() be consistent?

Question

If I override either method on a class, it must make sure that if A.equals(B) == true then A.hashCode() == B.hashCode must also be true.

Can

Answer 1

This is discussed in the Item 8: Always override hashCode when you override equals of Joshua Bloch's Effective Java:

A common source of bugs is the failure to override the hashCode method. You must override hashCode in every class that overrides equals. Failure to do so will result in a violation of the general contract for Object.hashCode, which will pre- vent your class from functioning properly in conjunction with all hash-based collec- tions, including HashMap, HashSet, and Hashtable.

Here is the contract, copied from the java.lang.Object specification:

• Whenever it is invoked on the same object more than once during an execution of an application, the hashCode method must consistently return the same integer, provided no information used in equals comparisons on the object is modified. This integer need not remain consistent from one execution of an application to another execution of the same application.

• If two objects are equal according to the equals(Object) method, then calling the hashCode method on each of the two objects must produce the same integer result.

• It is not required that if two objects are unequal according to the equals(Object) method, then calling the hashCode method on each of the two objects must produce distinct integer results. However, the programmer should be aware that producing distinct integer results for unequal objects may improve the performance of hash tables.

The key provision that is violated when you fail to override hashCode is the second one: Equal objects must have equal hash codes. Two distinct instances may be logically equal according to the class’s equals method, but to the Object class’s hashCode method, they’re just two objects with nothing much in common. Therefore object’s hashCode method returns two seemingly random numbers instead of two equal numbers as required by the contract.

For example, consider the following simplistic PhoneNumber class, whose equals method is constructed according to the recipe in Item 7:

public final class PhoneNumber {
     private final short areaCode;
     private final short exchange;
     private final short extension;

     public PhoneNumber(int areaCode, int exchange,
                           int extension) {
         rangeCheck(areaCode,   999, "area code");
         rangeCheck(exchange,   999, "exchange");
         rangeCheck(extension, 9999, "extension");

         this.areaCode = (short) areaCode;
         this.exchange = (short) exchange;
         this.extension = (short) extension;
     }

     private static void rangeCheck(int arg, int max,
                                 String name) {
         if (arg < 0 || arg > max)
             throw new IllegalArgumentException(name +": " + arg);
     }

     public boolean equals(Object o) {
         if (o == this)
             return true;
         if (!(o instanceof PhoneNumber))
             return false;
         PhoneNumber pn = (PhoneNumber)o;
         return pn.extension == extension &&
                pn.exchange == exchange &&
                pn.areaCode == areaCode;
     }

     // No hashCode method!
    ... // Remainder omitted
}

Suppose you attempt to use this class with a HashMap:

Map m = new HashMap();
m.put(new PhoneNumber(408, 867, 5309), "Jenny");

At this point, you might expect m.get(new PhoneNumber(408 , 867, 5309)) to return "Jenny", but it returns null. Notice that two PhoneNumber instances are involved: One is used for insertion into the HashMap, and a second, equal, instance is used for (attempted) retrieval. The PhoneNumber class’s failure to override hashCode causes the two equal instances to have unequal hash codes, in violation of the hashCode contract. Therefore the get method looks for the phone number in a different hash bucket from the one in which it was stored by the put method. Fixing this problem is as simple as providing a proper hashCode method for the PhoneNumber class. [...]

See the Chapter 3 for the full content.