Why does Object.opEquals *exist*

[Kristian Kilpi]

On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:09:55 +0200, Hasan Aljudy <hasan.aljudy at gmail.com>  
wrote:

>
>
> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> Bill Baxter wrote:
>>> Object.opEquals returns int for some reason.  That means I can't do  
>>> something like:
>>>
>>>      bool func() {
>>>        ...
>>>        return objA == objB;
>>>      }
>>>
>>> (Because int can't be converted to bool automatically). Instead I have  
>>> to do something like
>>>
>>>        return (objA == objB)!=0;
>>>
>>> Which is just looks silly.
>>>
>>> Is there any good reason for opEquals to return an int?  opCmp has to,  
>>> I understand, but opEquals has no business returning int.  Is this a  
>>> holdover from the days before bool?
>>>
>>> --bb
>>  After seeing some crashes upon comparing with null objects, I realized  
>> what I actually want is:
>>          return objA is objB;
>>  So I should change my question to "Why is opEqual defined by object at  
>> all??"
>>  --bb
>
> The "is" operator just compares for references/pointers, not object  
> equality.

So the original question remains: why 'opEquals' returns int?