title: Is Java hashCode() method a reliable measure of object equality?
body: <p>I am currently working on comparing two complex objects of the same type, with multiple fields consisting of data structures of custom object types. Assuming that none of the custom objects has  overriden the <code>hashCode()</code> method, if I compare the hashcodes of every field in the objects, and they will turn out to be the same, do I have a 100% confidence that the content of the compared objects is the same? If not, which method would you recommend to compare two objects, assuming I can't use any external libraries.</p>