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Java Java Data Structures - Retired Getting There Type Casting

Please explain typecasting

I still don't understand typecasting and why or when it should be used. I passed the challenge because I understand the syntax just not what it used for.

com/example/BlogPost.java
package com.example;

import java.util.Date;

public class BlogPost {
    private String mAuthor;
    private String mTitle;
    private String mBody;
    private String mCategory;
    private Date mCreationDate;

    public BlogPost(String author, String title, String body, String category, Date creationDate) {
      mAuthor = author;
      mTitle = title;
      mBody = body;
      mCategory = category;
      mCreationDate = creationDate;
    }

    public String getAuthor() {
      return mAuthor;
    }

    public String getTitle() {
      return mTitle;
    }

    public String getBody() {
      return mBody;
    }

    public String getCategory() {
      return mCategory;
    }

    public Date getCreationDate() {
      return mCreationDate;
    }
}
TypeCastChecker.java
import com.example.BlogPost;

public class TypeCastChecker {
  /***************
  I have provided 2 hints for this challenge.
  Change `false` to `true` in one line below, then click the "Check work" button to see the hint.
  NOTE: You must set all the hints to false to complete the exercise.
  ****************/
  public static boolean HINT_1_ENABLED = false;
  public static boolean HINT_2_ENABLED = false;

  public static String getTitleFromObject(Object obj) {
    // Fix this result variable to be the correct string.
    if (obj instanceof String) {
      return (String) obj;}
    else {
     return ((BlogPost) obj).getTitle(); 
    }
  }
}

1 Answer

The way I understand it: if we need to treat and object or primitive type in a specific way or apply a certain method that perhaps only operates on a specific data type, then we may need to type cast it. An easy example is type casting the int 3 into the double 3.0. If we were working with a method that only takes doubles, but somewhere we were given an int, we could type case the int so that the method can still work with that piece of data. Hope that helps.

Thank you for explaining it. It definitely helped.