How does the system behave if two different objects of the same class have the same hashCode() value?

In Java, the hashCode() method returns an integer value that is used, for example, in hash tables (HashMap, HashSet). If two different objects have the same hashCode() value, this is called a collision.

The system behaves correctly because hashCode() is only a hint for quick lookup. After finding the bucket with the desired hashCode(), objects are compared using the equals() method. If equals() returns false, the objects are considered different, despite having the same hashCode().

Thus, hashCode() collisions do not violate the correctness of collections, but they can reduce performance due to the need for additional object comparisons.