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BigDecimal.equals() may produce unintended results JAVA-W1083

Bug risk
Major

The Java analyzer has found a usage of BigDecimal.equals() in the code. This method may produce unintended results; it will also compare the scales of the two values, which can lead to it returning false even if the two values are equivalent.

The scale of a BigDecimal value can be thought of as the number of digits to the right of the decimal point in the value.

Bad Practice

Consider two BigDecimal values:

BigDecimal bd = BigDecimal.valueOf(3200);

// 32 * 10^-(-2) in terms of the input values.
BigDecimal bd2 = BigDecimal.valueOf(32, -2);

bd has a scale of 0, while bd2 has a scale of -2.

Now, if we compare the two values with the equals() method, we would find that it returns false, because the scales aren't the same.

assertTrue(bd.equals(bd2)); // throws.

Recommended

Use the compareTo() method instead. This method correctly compares the actual values of the two numbers, and will return 0 if the two numbers are numerically identical.

assertEquals(0, bd.compareTo(bd2)); // Works.

References