Is there something like instanceOf(Class<?> c) in Java?

java reflection instanceof
snakile picture snakile · Jun 4, 2009 · Viewed 85.6k times · Source

I want to check if an object o is an instance of the class C or of a subclass of C.

For instance, if p is of class Point I want x.instanceOf(Point.class) to be true and also x.instanceOf(Object.class) to be true.

I want it to work also for boxed primitive types. For instance, if x is an Integer then x.instanceOf(Integer.class) should be true.

Is there such a thing? If not, how can I implement such a method?

Answer

gustafc picture gustafc · Jun 4, 2009

Class.isInstance does what you want.

if (Point.class.isInstance(someObj)){
    ...
}

Of course, you shouldn't use it if you could use instanceof instead, but for reflection scenarios it often comes in handy.

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