Thread: Get static method to know which class it was called on

I am creating models, and in the base class for models, I need a static method that returns an instance of the class that the method was called on. As an example, when Person.getInstance() is called, I want new Person() to be returned.

The problem for me is to find out what class the function was called on. Any suggestions?

/**
 * The base class for models
 */
public class BaseModel {
 
    public static BaseModel getInstance() {
        // I want this method to return an instance of the class that it was
        // called on, like Person or Vehicle.            
 
    }
 
}
 
public class Person extends BaseModel {
 
    public String name;
 
    public Person() {
        this.name = "John Doe";
    }
}

Not simple. If you know all possible Classes that extend BaseModel, you can test with the instanceof all possible Cases.
For Example:

 if (this instanceof Person) ...

Originally Posted by Norm

In Person:

public static Person getInstance() {
   return new Person();
}

I don't know if what you want can be done.

Try asking on the Stack Overflow site.

I want the static function in the base class to return an instance of the class the function was called from. That function is intended to include a lot more code, and it would be greate to have just one function that did the job for all models inheriting the base.