JAVA Upcasting and Downcasting of reference variables

[Anup Om]

Hello,

I am having trouble understanding Java reference variable casting. Could anybody please explain me the concept.

Also, please see the below example:

   

class Animal { 

	public void callme()
	{
		System.out.println("In callme of Animal");
	}


}
class Dog extends Animal { 

	public void callme()
	{
		System.out.println("In callme of Dog");
	}

	public void callme2()
	{
		System.out.println("In callme2 of Dog");
	}


}


class UseAnimals {
	
	public static void main (String [] args) {
		Dog d = new Dog();		
		Animal a = (Animal)d;
		a.callme();
		
	}
}


 

Output from above code:
In callme of Dog

I was expecting "In callme of Animal". What am I missing?

When I say (classname)referencevariable, what exactly happens?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

it is not about Casting[though it is a UpCasting ]. it is about Polymorphism

    
Dog d = new Dog();         
        Animal a = (Animal)d;   
        a.callme();  

is equal to

    
Animal d = new Dog();        
           
        d.callme();  

[Vijitha Kumara]

When you invoke the method "callme()" on a "Animal" reference, method from the Dog object is called because by casting you are just change the reference to type "Animal" though the actual object being an instance of "Dog". Actually you don't need an explicit cast as "Animal" is the super class of "Dog", it is perfectly valid to have "Animal" reference refers to "Dog" object (this is called Polymorphism). Since you have overriden the method "callme()" defined in "Animal" within the "Dog" class, method from the "Dog" class is invoked at runtime.

[Vijitha Kumara]

And Welcome to JavaRanch

[Sagar Rohankar]

Welcome to JR.

Anu Kota wrote:
I was expecting "In callme of Animal". What am I missing?

For such problem, I follow my rule of thumb, like
Whenever a reference is used to call a method, then method belongs the class of that object gets called. Here "a" is of type "Animal" but it points to object of "Dog".

But as paramagnetism said, its polymorphism.

[PrasannaKumar Sathiyanantham]

A superclass reference can point to a subclass object.
This is how polymorphism is achieved in java.
Don't worry about it.

Read about java inheritance and polymorphism better.

One book (the book that i read) is java2 complete reference with really good examples.Please try that

[Anup Om]

Vijitha Kumara wrote:And Welcome to JavaRanch

Thanks Vijitha Kumara and Sagar Rohankar

[Anup Om]

By casting, either up or down, I am changing the reference type only. That effects which methods can be called. If I upcast, methods in the superclass that can be inherited only can be called. If I downcast, methods that are specific to subclass can also be called. But which version of the overridden method gets called depends on the actual instance (polymorphism).



Eg:1 Upcast:
Dog d = new Dog();
((Animal)d).callme(); //Compiles, this invokes callme from Dog class.
((Animal)d).callme2(); //Compilation error

Eg:2 Downcast:

Animal a = new Dog();
a.callme(); //Compiles, this invokes callme from Dog class.
a.callme2(); //compilation error - thats why downcasting is needed
((Dog)a).callme2(); //Complies, invokes callme2 from Dog

Did I get this right?

[Vijitha Kumara]

Did I get this right?

Yep

[Anup Om]

Thanks everybody for your help.