[Solved] Why doesn’t equals throw NullPointerException when one of the variables is pointing to null [duplicate]

Question

It’s because the contract for the equals method, as specified in the Javadoc for the Object.equals method , explicitly states:

For any non-null reference value x, x.equals(null) should return false.

If the method threw a NullPointerException, it would be non-compliant with the contract.

Accepted Answer

It’s because the contract for the equals method, as specified in the Javadoc for the Object.equals method , explicitly states:

For any non-null reference value x, x.equals(null) should return false.

If the method threw a NullPointerException, it would be non-compliant with the contract.