Why cannot cast Integer to String in java?

Question

I found some strange exception:

java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.Integer 
 cannot be cast to java.lang.String

How it can be possible? Each object can be casted to String, doesn't it?

The code is:

String myString = (String) myIntegerObject;

Thanks.

Answer 1

Why this is not possible:

Because String and Integer are not in the same Object hierarchy.

      Object
     /      \
    /        \
String     Integer

The casting which you are trying, works only if they are in the same hierarchy, e.g.

      Object
     /
    /
   A
  /
 /
B

In this case, (A) objB or (Object) objB or (Object) objA will work.

Hence as others have mentioned already, to convert an integer to string use:

String.valueOf(integer), or Integer.toString(integer) for primitive,

or

Integer.toString() for the object.