I have a requirement to process a number of different instances of different classes in a similar fashion, like so:

doClass1()
{
..
  Class1 obj = (Class1)wigit.get();
  process(obj);
..
}

doClass2()
{
..
  Class2 obj = (Class2)wigit.get();
  process(obj);
..
}

Is there some way that I can abstract out the different classes to give me something like:

doClassX(something??)
{
..
  Something?? obj = (something??)wigit.get();
  process(obj);
..
}

so that I can call method doClassX() twice with an argument rather than having two almost identical methods.

Thanks in advance.

I have been trying to do this for an age but can't figure it.

You can do:

Object obj = myVector.get(0);
process(obj);

And in process you would have:

Class theClass = obj.getClass();
if (theClass.getName().equals("java.lang.String"))
{
  String stringObject = (String)obj;
  System.out.println(stringObject.length());
}
else if (theClass.getName().equals("java.lang.Boolean"))
{
  Boolean boolObject = (Boolean)obj;
  System.out.println(boolObject.booleanValue());
}

But I have found no way of casting an unknown class so that you can call class-specific methods on it. I don't think it can be done.

Chris J

Hi....

Yes you cam much simplier....using polymorphism

Something must be the superclass of class1 and class2....
(or class1 and class2 implement Something interface)
Due the "late binding" process(something) the appropiate process method is executed.

Hope this helps,

LOOP

Thanks for the direction. I think my snippet was not clear enough, as the process(), doClass1(), doClass2() are methods of a handler class.

I simply replaced the casting of Class1 & Class2 to Object and everything worked fine, my method doClassX() now looks like this.

doClassX()
{
..
Object obj = wigit.get();
process(obj);
..
}


Regards,

Bluespud.

Yes..a polymophic call indeed :)