string comparison does not match but 'contains' does - groovy

Question

I have a strange problem using groovy, I found a workaround but I'm quite not satisfied so maybe someone will be able to help me:
I use ReadyAPI 2.8. In my test cases I have groovy steps.
In one of those, I recover a String from a previous test step and I want to do a particular processing if it matches the string "TJA470". The previous test step gives a string that is the output of a ssh command.
here is the groovy step code :
def hbox_ref = context.expand( '${get current HBox reference#hbox_ref}' )
// this returns me the data as a String
log.info hbox_ref
log.info "\"$hbox_ref\"" // to check if there is no spurious blank
log.info hbox_ref.class
log.info (hbox_ref == "TJA470") => returns false
log.info (hbox_ref.equals("TJA470")) => returns false
log.info (hbox_ref.contains("TJA470")) => returns true
here is the console result :
Fri Sep 20 16:13:17 CEST 2019: INFO: TJA470
Fri Sep 20 16:13:17 CEST 2019: INFO: "TJA470
"
Fri Sep 20 16:13:17 CEST 2019: INFO: class java.lang.String
Fri Sep 20 16:13:17 CEST 2019: INFO: false
Fri Sep 20 16:13:17 CEST 2019: INFO: false
Fri Sep 20 16:13:17 CEST 2019: INFO: true
The straighforward test is == or equals though there are differences, I use those in all the other comparisons of the same type and it works.
As you can see here the most logic cases return false and I really can't work out why.
If I do the same script in a tool like 'groovy playground' it works as expected ! :(
I'm not an expert in groovy at all and there must be something that I missed, but I find it very tricky !
If anyone can help ...
thanks

Answer 1

Thanks to SO I found out the problem :
with copy/pasting the console return in the question, it shows that there is a special character at the end of the text. This is not visible in SOAPUI log output ...
I added the following processing in my script :
def hbox_ref = context.expand( '${get current HBox reference#hbox_ref}' )
hbox_ref = hbox_ref.replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z0-9]+","")
or
hbox_ref = hbox_ref.replaceAll("[^\\w]+","")
this gives
log.info (hbox_ref == "TJA470") => returns true (at last !)
more elegant solution (thanks to SiKing) :
(hbox_ref.trim() == "TJA470")
instead of using replaceAll