Programmer's Guide to Java™ Certification, A: A Comprehensive Primer, Second Edition

3.10. Equality

Primitive Data Value Equality: ==, !=

Given that a and b represent operands of primitive data types, the primitive data value equality operators are defined as shown in Table 3.7.

Table 3.7. Primitive Data Value Equality Operators

a == b	a and b are equal? That is, have the same primitive value? (Equality)
a != b	a and b are not equal? That is, do not have the same primitive value? (Inequality)

The equality operator == and the inequality operator != can be used to compare primitive data values, including boolean values. Binary numeric promotion is applied to the nonboolean operands of these equality operators.

 int year = 2002; boolean isEven = year % 2 == 0; // true. boolean compare = '1' == 1; // false. Binary numeric promotion applied. ...