type casting

[Ramu Rondla]

Hello friends,
Is there any way to type cast primitive data types to class data types?
Thanks,
Ramu

[John Smith]

From Java Language Specification, (�5.5 Casting Conversion): A value of a primitive type cannot be cast to a reference type by casting conversion, nor can a value of a reference type be cast to a primitive type.
What is it that you are trying to accomplish?

[Herb Schildt]

Ramu:
If you want to convert a primitive type into an object, you would normally use one of the type wrappers built into java.lang. These include
Integer
Double
Float
Byte
Short
Long
Char
Here is an example.

class Test {
  public static void main(String arg[]) {

    // This creates an Integer object having the value 10.
    Integer iObj = new Integer(10); 

    // This outputs the number 10.
    System.out.println(iObj);

    // Get the primitive value again.
    int i = iObj.intValue();

    // This also outputs the number 10.
    System.out.println(i);

  }
}

[Dirk Schreckmann]

Note that the coming Java 1.5 compilers will have a feature known as auto-boxing and auto-unboxing. Primitives won't be cast to objects, but in certain circumstances, the compiler will wrap a primitive up using the appropriate wrapper class, and unwrap wrapper class instances into the appropriate primitive values.