Casting dynamically

[Firas Majdi]

hi all

please help me ,
how i could choose the casting i want on dynamically,

lets say...

Class.forName("java.lang.Short").cast("4");

offcourse this will result a Class Cast Exception

tell me what to do?

[Brian Cole]

Originally posted by Firas Majdi:
how i could choose the casting i want on dynamically,

lets say...

Class.forName("java.lang.Short").cast("4");

offcourse this will result a Class Cast Exception

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Casting of base types is another story, but casting of reference
types is pretty much done only for compile-time type safety. (I
guess it can also be used to test for null or cause an exception
to be thrown, but there are simpler ways to do those things.)

Casting from one reference type to another doesn't do any conversion
or anything, it just obtains a reference that is of a different type.
So how would it be useful to cast dynamically?

tell me what to do?

Well if you are trying to convert from the String "4" to a
java.lang.Short, then use the static Short.valueOf() method
(or the Short constructor that accepts a String).

If you are trying to understand how and why the Class.cast()
method works, keep in mind that it's pretty much pointless
outside the context of generics. And it does nothing useful
at runtime [though it does throw an exception if a call to
Class.isInstance() fails] as it simply returns its argument.

[Joe Ess]

Use polymorphism and/or generics.
If you find yourself typecasting a lot, you have a problem with your object model. It is easier/better to change your object model than to try to code around it.

[Firas Majdi]

well to be more accurate i dont want to convert from string to short the case that i want to convert from string to any type i choose on run time but without using if statements , i get the type from an xml file and use it in my project depending on certain rules

[Ilja Preuss]

That's not really casting, but converting. And there really isn't a single java command that does this, so you will need to have some form of if or switch statement, or use something like the Strategy design pattern.

[Brian Cole]

Originally posted by Firas Majdi:
well to be more accurate i dont want to convert from string to short the case that i want to convert from string to any type i choose on run time but without using if statements , i get the type from an xml file and use it in my project depending on certain rules

In general there's no way to do this. Some classes just can't be converted from Strings.

However, they way some classes (such as DefaultFormatter) handle this is to presume that the class in question has a constructor that takes a single String argument, and invoke that constructor via reflection. Could this approach would work for you?
[ March 03, 2008: Message edited by: Brian Cole ]