During a test/debug cycle, we ran into a problem with the MacAddress object. It is best explained by this test case

MacAddress macAddr1 = new MacAddress("FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF");
MacAddress macAddr2 = new MacAddress("ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff");

if (macAddr1.equals(macAddr2)) {
System.out.println("SAME");
}
else {
System.out.println("DIFFERENT");
}

Logically the macAddr1 and macAddr2 are the same, but the ODL code does not treat them as the same.

Reading the code, the MacAddress object always treats the data as a string, not as an array of bytes.