The standard Java libraries fail to provide enough methods for manipulation of its core classes. The Lang Component provides these extra methods. The Lang Component provides a host of helper utilities for the java.lang API, notably String manipulation methods, basic numerical methods, object reflection, creation and serialization, and System properties. Additionally it contains an inheritable enum type, an exception structure that supports multiple types of nested-Exceptions and a series of utlities dedicated to help with building methods, such as hashCode, toString and equals. WWW: http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/lang.html