I am making a method .equals replacing the equals method used. It accepts a object. I want it to check if that object equals the class that runs the .equals class. I know I want to compare all the private methods I have to that object. Is there a way to do this without making another private class to get the private variables from the object? How do I do this to compare equality not identity? I am stuck on this. Do i have to use == to compare? Also looking online i see others use recursion. If this is the way i have to do it can you show and explain it to me? so an example i have public boolean equals(Object o) { this is in a class we will call bobtheBuilder (first thing to pop in my head) I want to check if the object o is equal to the class he has private object array and a private int. I assume I want to check if the array and int of this class equal the array and int of the object.