The Overarching Object Class

• Public class Object is the root of the class hierarchy. Every Java class has Object as its ultimate parent and so any object (object with a small "o" is any instance of a class) can use methods of Object.

• Methods of Object include:

  • clone() creates a clone of the object
  • equals( Object ) compares two objects, returning a boolean result
  • getClass() returns a descriptor of type Class (a child of Object) defining the class of the object
  • toString() returns a String representation of the object. It is expected that each subclass will override this method
  • wait(...) in various forms causes threads to wait
  • finalize() executed when the object is deleted by system (i.e., garbage collected)

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