Java comparison with == of two strings is false? [duplicate]

Answer 1

I thought it might be helpful to express the answer in a test case:

public class String231Test extends TestCase {
    private String  a;
    private String  b;

    protected void setUp() throws Exception {
        a = "231";
        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
        sb.append("231");
        b = sb.toString();
    }

    public void testEquals() throws Exception {
        assertTrue(a.equals(b));
    }

    public void testIdentity() throws Exception {
        assertFalse(a == b);
    }
}