OpenSAML user discussion

[Chad La Joie <>]

Generally, the equals() method does reference comparison, as I mentioned 
before.  The normal way, in Java, to do equality checking when there are 
application specific ways to do it, is to create one or more 
java.util.Comparator implementations.  This can be used for equality 
comparison and ordering (with certain types of Collections).  This 
allows application to do what they want, without having to worry/wonder 
about what the developer did, or might do, with the equals() method.

After talking with Scott about this, this is the route we suggest if you 
need to do comparisons on SAMLObjects.

Tom Scavo wrote:
> The unit test
>
>     public void testSAMLNameIdentifier() throws Exception {
>         SAMLNameIdentifier nameid1 =
>             SAMLNameIdentifier.getInstance(new FileInputStream(xmlpath));
>         SAMLNameIdentifier nameid2 = (SAMLNameIdentifier) nameid1.clone();
>         assertEquals("Name identifiers are not equal", nameid1, nameid2);
>     }
>
> fails with the following error message:
>
> Name identifiers are not equal expected:<<NameIdentifier
> xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:assertion"
> Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:X509SubjectName">uid=By-Tor,ou=tobes,dc=hades,dc=com</NameIdentifier>>
> but was:<<NameIdentifier xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:assertion"
> Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:X509SubjectName">uid=By-Tor,ou=tobes,dc=hades,dc=com</NameIdentifier>>
>
> If I replace the call to assertEquals with
>
>         assertEquals("Serialized name identifiers are not equal",
>                      nameid1.toString(), nameid2.toString());
>
> the test succeeds.
>
> Why does a straight 'equals' test fail?  Should SAMLNameIdentifier (or
> its superclass SAMLObject) define an 'equals' method?
>
> Thanks,
> Tom

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Chad La Joie             315Q St. Mary's Hall
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