Java源代码阅读体会（1）-String

今天我看到String的源代码，有点迷糊，还请大家不吝赐教。

 

/**
     * Compares this string to the specified object.  The result is {@code
     * true} if and only if the argument is not {@code null} and is a {@code
     * String} object that represents the same sequence of characters as this
     * object.
     *
     * @param  anObject
     *         The object to compare this {@code String} against
     *
     * @return  {@code true} if the given object represents a {@code String}
     *          equivalent to this string, {@code false} otherwise
     *
     * @see  #compareTo(String)
     * @see  #equalsIgnoreCase(String)
     */
    public boolean equals(Object anObject) {
	if (this == anObject) {
	    return true;
	}
	if (anObject instanceof String) {
	    String anotherString = (String)anObject;
	    int n = count;
	    if (n == anotherString.count) {
		char v1[] = value;
		char v2[] = anotherString.value;
		int i = offset;
		int j = anotherString.offset;
		while (n-- != 0) {
		    if (v1[i++] != v2[j++])
			return false;
		}
		return true;
	    }
	}
	return false;
    }

 

这个是String中比较值是否相等的代码，我不明白第一个分支this == anObject，这个在什么时候会成立呢？