Casting

[Anonymous]

Hi All,
Do take a look at this code from Khalid Mughal's book (Pg. 247)
<code>
class Light {/* ... */}
class LightBulb extends Light {/* ... */}
class SpotLightBulb extends LightBulb {/* ... */}
class TubeLight extends Light {/* ... */}
class NeonLight extends TubeLight {/* ... */}
public class WhoAmI {
public static void main(String[] args){
boolean result1, result2, result3, result4, result5;
Light light1 = new LightBulb();
//String str = (String) light1;
//result1 = light1 instanceof String;
result2 = light1 instanceof TubeLight;
//TubeLight tubelight1 = (TubeLight) light1;

result3 = light1 instanceof SpotLightBulb;
//SpotLightBulb spotRef = (SpotLightBulb) light1;
light1 = new NeonLight();
if (light1 instanceof TubeLight) {
TubeLight tubelight2 = (TubeLight) light1;
}
}
}
</code>
In Page 178, the book says that "Casting the value of a superclass reference to a subclass type is called downcasting. After reading that I am at a loss to understand why the line
<code>//SpotLightBulb spotRef = (SpotLightBulb) light1;</code> would give a compiler error?

I would appreciate any help that would make me understand this.
Thanks in Advance
Shyam
[This message has been edited by Shyamsundar Gururaj (edited September 08, 2001).]

[Anonymous]

Is this is because of..."The Destination Type must be a superclass of the Source Type"?...If so, where does downcasting come into the picture?
Regards
Shyam
[This message has been edited by Shyamsundar Gururaj (edited September 08, 2001).]

[Cameron Park]

I uncommented that line and javac compiled with no problem. I was using jdk1.3 on Windows98. Explicit casting between two classes that are in any kind of heirachical relationship is allowed. Implicit conversion only works up the inhertance heirachy.

[Anonymous]

Cameron,
I was wrong in saying that it was a compiler error in my first post. In fact it is a ClassCastException.
I am using JDK 1.3 in Windows 2000...Here's the output that I got after uncommenting that line.
--------------
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassCastException: LightBulb at WhoAmI.main(WhoAmI.java:19)
--------------
Waiting for your comments.
Shyam

[Jose Botella]

There is no such compile error for

SpotLightBulb spotRef = (SpotLightBulb) light1;

but a run time.
The compiler only checks for a hierarquical relationship and for a cast operator if donwcasting. However at runtime any subclass object can be upcasted but only the ones that are really of the subclass type can be downcasted. As a ligthBulb is not a spotLigthBulb object the exception is thrown at run time.
The same can be said for

TubeLight tubelight1 = (TubeLight) light1;

[Anonymous]

Jose,
I followed your comments and added this snippet to the existing code. It worked just fine.

     LightBulb lig = new SpotLightBulb();         
     result4 = lig instanceof SpotLightBulb; //result4 is boolean. Prints "True".
     System.out.println(result4);
     SpotLightBulb spotRef = (SpotLightBulb) lig;
</font>

So, if I understood you completely... Downcasting is only possible when the superclass reference points to a subclass object. And such being the case, the superclass reference can be downcast to a subclass type (an object of which the superclass reference is pointing to.)
Is this what you meant when you said "

However at runtime any subclass object can be upcasted but only the ones that are really of the subclass type can be downcasted."

?
Do tell me whether I have understood things right.
Thanks
Shyam

[This message has been edited by Shyamsundar Gururaj (edited September 08, 2001).]

[Jose Botella]

Yes you got it
otherwise an object could receive messages(methods) for which is not prepared for (not corresponding to its real type)