Is there a form of "type safe" casting in Java?

Question

Suppose I have two classes deriving from a third abstract class:

public abstract class Parent{
    public Parent(){
    }
}

public class ChildA extends Parent {
    public ChildA {
    }
}

public class ChildB extends Parent {
    public ChildB {
    }
}

In C# I could handle casting in a somewhat type safe manner by doing:

ChildA child = obj as ChildA;

Which would make child == null if it wasn't a ChildA type object. If I were to do:

ChildA child = (ChildA)obj;

...in C# this would throw an exception if the type wasn't correct.

So basically, is there a way to to do the first type of casting in Java? Thanks.

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8649975/is-there-a-form-of-type-safe-casting-in-java

Answer 1

I can't think of a way in the language itself, but you can easily emulate it like this:

ChildA child = (obj instanceof ChildA ? (ChildA)obj : null);