I have to compare two Integer objects (not int). What is the canonical way to compare them?
Integer x = ...
Integer y = ...
I can think of this:
if (x == y)
The == operator only compares references, so this will only work for lower integer values. But perhaps auto-boxing kicks in...?
if (x.equals(y))
This looks like an expensive operation. Are there any hash codes calculated this way?
if (x.intValue() == y.intValue())
A little bit verbose...
EDIT: Thank you for your responses. Although I know what to do now, the facts are distributed on all of the existing answers (even the deleted ones :)) and I don't really know, which one to accept. So I'll accept the best answer, which refers to all three comparison possibilities, or at least the first two.