How do I override an object that is being passed into a method to string?

Question

It's exactly as the title says, I am trying to pass an object into a method, so that I can compare strings. The object doesn't convert properly, showing up as "MediaItem@9a2", and I know I have to use override but I'm not quite sure how to do this.

public class MediaItem {                                                
private String title;                                               
                                            
public String getTitle() {                                              
    return title;                                               
}                                               
                                            
public void setTitle(String title) {                                                
    this.title = title;                                             
}                                               
public MediaItem(String t)                                              
{                                               
    setTitle(t);                                                
}                                               
                                            
public MediaItem()                                              
{                                               
                                            
}                                               
                                            
public boolean equals(Object obj)                                               
{                                               
String temptitle = getTitle();                                              
temptitle = temptitle.toLowerCase();                                                
temptitle = temptitle.trim();                                               
//    System.out.println(temptitle);                                                
                                            
                                            
String tempobj = obj.toString();                                                
System.out.println(tempobj);                                                
tempobj=tempobj.toLowerCase();                                              
tempobj= tempobj.trim();                                                
System.out.println(tempobj);                                                
                                            
                                            
if (temptitle.equals(tempobj))                                              
{                                               
System.out.println("this");                                             
return true;                                                
}                                               
else{                                               
return false;                                               
}                                               
                                            
}                                               
                                            
@Override                                               
public String toString()                                                
{                                               
return obj.title;                                               
}                                               
                                            
}

There's a bad attempt at overriding at the bottom of the code. Also, not sure why all the colour has disappeared from the code.

Edit: Ok maybe I should add some more explanation: The task is to compare the obj sent in and the title of the current object. If they match, I return true. If not, I return false. The only thing I am allowed to change is the stuff within the equals(object obj) method. I can also add override. That's it. Is there an easier way to do this than what I was trying to do?

Answer 1

Overriding the toString() method is when you wanna do some custom external serialization for the toString() rather than the usual object hashed code. For comparing obj using equal() , you need to custom the equals method depends on your needs, like fields comparision, hashed comparison, etc.

Answer 2

public String toString()                                                
{                                               
     return title;                                               
}                   

is sufficient you could also use return this.title; however the this is implicit as there are no other title defined in the method

Answer 3

To get human readable representation of the object you should override toString() method, that's correct. However you should do it like that:

public String toString() {
   return title; // No obj!
}
// or like that
public String toString() {
 return "MyClass{title=" + title + "}";
}

What you are doing wrong is comparing objects. It's a complex topic but there is a quick example:

@Override
public boolean equals(Object o) {
    return o != null
        && getClass() == o.getClass()
        && Objects.equals(title.toLowerCase().trim(),
            o.title.toLowerCase().trim()); // for each field
}