Boolean Comparison With Literal

ID

java.boolean_compare_with_literal

Severity

low

Remediation Complexity

medium

Remediation Risk

low

Remediation Effort

medium

Resource

Code Smell

Language

Java

Tags

code-style, suspicious-comparison

Description

Reports uses of == or != to compare a value with the boolean literals true or false.

Rationale

Comparing a boolean expression with a boolean literal is redundant. if (flag == true) is exactly equivalent to if (flag), and if (flag == false) is equivalent to if (!flag). The literal comparison adds noise without adding information and can confuse readers into thinking a non-boolean type is involved.

// Bad -- redundant comparison
if (flag == true) { ... }
if (flag == false) { ... }
if (true == flag) { ... }

Remediation

Use the boolean expression directly.

// Good -- direct boolean expression
if (flag) { ... }
if (!flag) { ... }

References