Does Java have generic test for equality that also handles nulls?

Question

Is there anywhere in the Java standard libraries that has a static equality function something like this?

public static <T> boolean equals(T a, T b)
{
    if (a == null)
        return b == null;
    else if (b == null)
        return false;
    else
        return a.equals(b);
}

I just implemented this in a new project Util class, for the umpteenth time. Seems unbelievable that it wouldn't ship as a standard library function...

Answer 1

In JDK 7 there's Objects#equals(). From the Javadoc:

Returns true if the arguments are equal to each other and false otherwise. Consequently, if both arguments are null, true is returned and if exactly one argument is null, false is returned. Otherwise, equality is determined by using the equals method of the first argument.

In addition to the already mentioned function in Apache Commons Lang there's also one in Google Guava, Objects#equal():

Answer 2

Java 7 onward we have JDK 7 Objects#equals().

You can look at the 3rd party libraries too :

Apache Commons ObjectUtils#equals() , Google's Guava Objects#equal() and Spring's ObjectUtils#nullSafeEquals().