Equality of strings

[snowstorm]

Hi,
I have two strings that I think are the same. One is in an array list and the other is in an array.
Heres what they look like:
String[] names = new String[l];
ArrayList<String> v = new ArrayList<String>();
If I print them out like:
System.out.print(v.get(l+1) + " " + names[i]);
they both show dave
but if i do
if(names[i] == v.get(l+1))
the if statement returns false, (this is in a for statement)

Anyone know why this could be happening?
Thanks.

[faulkner]

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/...ng/String.html

if(names[i].equals(v.get(l+1)) {statement;}

[faulkner]

in case you want to know why:
http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/javano...va2cpp/s2.html