Overloading an operator means overriding its functionalities so it can work with, e.g., our class's objects. In Java, we cannot overload operators directly as we do in languages like C++ (e.g., ==, <<). Here, we override methods corresponding to the operators (e.g., equals() equals ==). The toString() method defines how a class object will be displayed when printed or converted to a string (using toString()). The example below shows how to overload the equals() method so it can compare class instances and the toString() method so they can be displayed properly.

class Comparison {
    private int x;
    private int y;

    public Comparison(int x, int y) {
        this.x = x;
        this.y = y;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        Comparison other = (Comparison) obj; // casting the object from the argument to the "Comparison" type
        return this.x == other.x && this.y == other.y;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "x: " + x + ", y: " + y;
    }
}

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Comparison x = new Comparison(10, 20);
        Comparison y = new Comparison(10, 20);
        System.out.println(y);

        if (x.equals(y))
            System.out.println("a and b are the same");
    }
}                                   
                                    

Another important operator-like method is compareTo(), which simulates comparison operators like <, >, and == for objects. It returns a negative integer if this object is less than the argument, zero if they are equal, and a positive integer if this object is greater than the argument.