Java array reflection: isArray vs. instanceof

Question

Is there a preference or behavior difference between using:

if(obj.getClass().isArray()) {}

and

if(obj instanceof Object[]) {}

?

Answer 1

In most cases, you should use the instanceof operator to test whether an object is an array.

Generally, you test an object's type before downcasting to a particular type which is known at compile time. For example, perhaps you wrote some code that can work with a Integer[] or an int[]. You'd want to guard your casts with instanceof:

if (obj instanceof Integer[]) {
    Integer[] array = (Integer[]) obj;
    /* Use the boxed array */
} else if (obj instanceof int[]) {
    int[] array = (int[]) obj;
    /* Use the primitive array */
} else ...

At the JVM level, the instanceof operator translates to a specific "instanceof" byte code, which is optimized in most JVM implementations.

In rarer cases, you might be using reflection to traverse an object graph of unknown types. In cases like this, the isArray() method can be helpful because you don't know the component type at compile time; you might, for example, be implementing some sort of serialization mechanism and be able to pass each component of the array to the same serialization method, regardless of type.

There are two special cases: null references and references to primitive arrays.

A null reference will cause instanceof to result false, while the isArray throws a NullPointerException.

Applied to a primitive array, the instanceof yields false unless the component type on the right-hand operand exactly matches the component type. In contrast, isArray() will return true for any component type.