Unlikely argument type for equals(): String seems to be unrelated to MemberSearchRequest

Hi I just want to implement this error message but it seems like it is not being processed. My goal here is to make the error message appear when either of the three requests (generatedMemberNo, firstname, lastname) have no results. Here is my code:

    public String searchMember(
@RequestBody(required = false) MemberSearchRequest request, 
@RequestParam(value = "offset", required = false) @ApiParam(value = "offset") final Integer offset,
@RequestParam(value = "limit", required = false) @ApiParam(value = "limit") final Integer limit,
@RequestParam(value = "orderBy", required = false) @ApiParam(value = "orderBy") final String orderBy,
@RequestParam(value = "sortOrder", required = false) @ApiParam(value = "sortOrder") final String sortOrder) {
CommandProcessingResult result = null;
if(request.equals("generatedMemberNo") && this.clientRepository.getClientByMemberNo(String.valueOf(request.getGeneratedMemberNo())) == null ||
request.equals("firstname") && this.clientRepository.getClientByFirstName(String.valueOf(request.getFirstname())) == null ||
request.equals("lastname") && this.clientRepository.getClientByLastName(String.valueOf(request.getLastname())) == null) {
result = new CommandProcessingResultBuilder()
.setStatus("Failed")
.setMessage("MEMBER NOT FOUND")
.setRefNo("<YYYY-MM-DD-H-M-S-Count>")
.setPfsRefNo("1234567890")
.build();
return this.toApiJsonSerializer.serialize(result);
}
return this.searchMember(request.getGeneratedMemberNo(), request.getFirstname(), request.getLastname(),
offset, limit, orderBy, sortOrder);
}

And this is my code for MemberSearchRequest.java

@Data
public class MemberSearchRequest {
public String generatedMemberNo;
public String firstname;
public String lastname;
}

Your MemberSearchRequest isn't a String so the first parts of your compound if statement will never be true.

request.equals("generatedMemberNo") &&
request.equals("firstname") &&
request.equals("firstname") &&

It appears that you could remove them and the null checks would be met.

if(this.clientRepository.getClientByMemberNo(String.valueOf(request.getGeneratedMemberNo())) == null ||
this.clientRepository.getClientByFirstName(String.valueOf(request.getFirstname())) == null ||
this.clientRepository.getClientByLastName(String.valueOf(request.getLastname())) == null)