Does Java have an “is kind of class” test method

Question

I have a baseclass, Statement, which several other classes inherit from, named IfStatement, WhereStatement, etc... What is the best way t

Answer 1

if (obj.getClass().isInstance(Statement.class)) {
   doStuffWithStatements((Statement) obj));
}

The nice thing about this technique (as opposed to the "instanceof" keyword) is that you can pass the test-class around as an object. But, yeah, other than that, it's identical to "instanceof".

NOTE: I've deliberately avoided editorializing about whether or not type-instance-checking is the right thing to do. Yeah, in most cases, it's better to use polymorphism. But that's not what the OP asked, and I'm just answering his question.