BasicObject#equal?
VALUE
rb_obj_equal(VALUE obj1, VALUE obj2)
{
return RBOOL(obj1 == obj2);
}
Alias of #==
Equality — At the Object level, == returns true only if obj and other are the same object. Typically, this method is overridden in descendant classes to provide class-specific meaning.
Unlike ==, the equal? method should never be overridden by subclasses as it is used to determine object identity (that is, a.equal?(b) if and only if a is the same object as b):
obj = "a" other = obj.dup obj == other #=> true obj.equal? other #=> false obj.equal? obj #=> true
The eql? method returns true if obj and other refer to the same hash key. This is used by Hash to test members for equality. For any pair of objects where eql? returns true, the hash value of both objects must be equal. So any subclass that overrides eql? should also override hash appropriately.
For objects of class Object, eql? is synonymous with ==. Subclasses normally continue this tradition by aliasing eql? to their overridden == method, but there are exceptions. Numeric types, for example, perform type conversion across ==, but not across eql?, so:
1 == 1.0 #=> true 1.eql? 1.0 #=> false