Is Downcasting possible in Java??

**tcstcs** · April 1st, 2011, 12:02 AM

Hi,

Is downcasting possible in Java?? Googled for "Downcasting", everyone says it fails at run time.. So is there a way to achieve downcasting??

**Junky** · April 1st, 2011, 12:13 AM

Yes you can downcast but you may get a ClassCastException at runtime if the Object is not of the correct subtype. To avoid this you can use the instanceof operator.

if(obj instanceof Child) {
    perform cast
}

**Mr.777** · April 1st, 2011, 05:27 AM

Agree with Junky. One more thing, downcasting is only allowed if it will be succeeded at compile time. If it can't even succeded at compile time, it definitely means that you are going to downcast an invalid type to a real invalid other type. So, if you really need to downcast an object there are two choices.
1. Either use instanceof operator that will check if it is of correct datatype but that really doesn't matter as both results the same other than the error.
2. The second one is to write conversion constructor for your classes for which you want to downcast....
Also downcasting results in truncation of data most of the times so it's not preferred everytime.

**tcstcs** · April 4th, 2011, 10:02 AM

Hi,

I have 2 classes Animal and Cat. And Cat extends Animal class.
Animal aa = new Animal();
Cat cc = new Cat();

//Downcasting code
if(aa instanceof Cat)
{
Cat c1 = (Cat)aa;
}

Though i have used instanceOf operator to avoid classCast Exception, my aa object will never be an instanceof Cat obj, so Cat c1 = (Cat)aa code is never reached.
Does this mean that downcasting is not possible in java??

**KevinWorkman** · April 4th, 2011, 10:39 AM

It depends on your definition of "downcasting".

You cannot convert an Animal into a Cat. But if an instance of Cat is stored as an Animal (or Object, whatever), then you can indeed cast that as a Cat. As long as the Object in question is actually a Cat, and the variable it is being stored in is a parent of Cat, then you're good. For example, you can't convert a List into a Cat (unless, for some reason, Cat extended List).

Based on the wikipedia article for downcasting, my guess is that you're using the term incorrectly.

**Mr.777** · April 4th, 2011, 10:52 PM

So, i give you an example what this type of type-casting will effect the data and that's why it's prohibited.
Animal class will have attributes say, name, gender, color, cast,origin, type etc.
Cat class will have attributes say, gender, name, color, cast
Now when you will try to type-cast cat object to animal, this can be done and no loss of data but on the contrary, when you type cast animal to cat, you will certainly loose some or many of your data.
That's why this type of downcasting is prohibited but somehow you can do it as KevinWorkman has said.
Also, in my earlier post, i told you to use conversion operator. You can write your own conversion operator to type cast from animal to cat, in the way you want to handle it.

**tcstcs** · April 5th, 2011, 06:10 AM

@KevinWorkman , Can u explain with example what is ur understanding of downcasting. Thanks in advance

**KevinWorkman** · April 5th, 2011, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by tcstcs

@KevinWorkman , Can u explain with example what is ur understanding of downcasting. Thanks in advance

To use your example:

Animal a = new Animal();
Animal c = new Cat();
Cat cat = (cat)c;
c.meow(); //can't do this, there is no guarantee that c has a meow method
cat.meow(); //can do this, the compiler knows about the meow method in Cat

So you can store a Cat as an Animal, and you can "downcast" it to Cat when appropriate (but doing this might be a sign of a bad design).
The compiler will let you attempt to cast the variable "a" to a Cat, but you'll get a runtime error because the instance isn't actually a Cat.

And to use a real life example, say you have an ArrayList that isn't using generics:

ArrayList list = new ArrayList();
list.add(new Cat());

The list.get() method returns an Object (since everything is an Object and anything can be stored in an ArrayList). But that wouldn't be very useful if we couldn't "downcast" the Object to its actual type:

Cat c = (Cat)list.get(0);
c.meow();

Does that help?

**tcstcs** · April 7th, 2011, 04:55 AM

yeah... that cleared my doubt of down casting.

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