0-TestYourJava - Cast without exception

[GS-812]

Hello,

I want to point out, that most of the code "TestYourJava" Version 2 may work as expected but also may fail.

The given code will fail:

TestYourJava.java

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is Object? false
is null? false
is String? true
is Double? false

Whereas if our write

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Double o = null;

an exception will be thrown:

TestYourJavaV1.java

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is Object? false
Bob: ### java.lang.String cannot be cast to java.lang.Double ###
is null? true
is Double? false

So the function

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private static <T> T cast(Object i)

may work in some cases.

[eichberg]

Well, if you change the declared type of the variable o, the example is surely no longer the same. But – more important - the method cast is not the one that is throwing the class cast exception in your example. If you change the method as follows:

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    private static <T> T cast(Object i) {
        System.out.print("cast ");
        T t =  (T) i;
        System.out.println("successful");
        return t;
    }

you'll see that the method is always successful. The exception is thrown when the return value is assigned to local variable o. Moreover, to get the code compiling you had to comment out the line

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System.out.println("is String?\t" +(o instanceof String));

, which is another hint that the change had – type wise – a more significant impact.