Problem about the PortableRemoteObject method

[Yashnoo lyo]

In test method of EJB and I find the code:"InitialContext ctx=new InitialContext();
Object objRef = ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/ejb/Hello");
HelloHome
home=(HelloHome)javax.rmi.PortableRemoteObject.narrow(
objRef,HelloHome.class);"
The jdk help file says:"The narrow method takes an object reference or abstract interface type and attempts to narrow it to conform to the given interface.". I don't understand that the PortableRemoteObject.narrow method convert the objRef to HelloHome already But Why I must cast it to HelloHome interface explicitly again? I means wheather I can write this:"HelloHome
home=javax.rmi.PortableRemoteObject.narrow(objRef,HelloHome.class);" ?Help

[Lasse Koskela]

PortableRemoteObject.narrow() method signatures promises to return a java.lang.Object. According to the Java Language Specification, you must explicitly cast it into the correct class.

[Dave Cronin]

The signature of the PortableRemoteObject.narrow() method is:
public static Object narrow(Object narrowFrom, Class narrowTo)
The narrow method returns an Object which contains a HelloHome interface type. To assign it to your HelloHome "home" variable, you have to explicitly cast the returned Object to the HelloHome interface.
The narrow method is there only to allow interoperability with RMI-IIOP, which requires the explicit checking of types in the narrow method. (I think this might not actually be a cast conversion to HelloHome though.) If you look at the method, you can see it takes an Object parameter, and then returns the same Object again. But then you know it is safe to perform the Java cast afterwards.
Some application servers such as Weblogic don't require the narrow method, but they still recommend it for interoperability.
see http://edocs.bea.com/wle/rmi/rmiapi.htm
[ June 20, 2003: Message edited by: Dave Cronin ]

[Yashnoo lyo]

Thank you.But why I must write(objRef,HelloHome.class) other than (objRef,HelloHome).Because I think HelloHome is a interface and it Shouldn't write to a class "HelloHome". Java why to regulate this?

[Dave Cronin]

The second parameter of the narrow() method is a java.lang.Class. java.lang.Class can represent either a class or an interface. Therefore, the method needs the code

 HelloHome.class 

to obtain a Class from HelloHome. This is the same as using

 Class.forName("HelloHome") 

.
It has to do it this way so that the narrow method can work for any class or interface.