Avoid casting in inherited java-classes

Question

I have a class:

class MyClass {

  public MyClass getParent() { ... }

  public MyClass[] getChildren() { ... }

  ....

}

and a subclass

Answer 1

Yes, assuming that you know that the parent and children of a MySubClass will always be of type MySubClass.

In that case you could just narrow the return types in MySubClass and do the casting there:

MySubClass extends MyClass() {
    @Overrides
    public MySubClass getParent() { return (MySubclass) super.getParent(); }

    @Overrides
    public MySubClass[] getChildren() { return (MySubclass[]) super.getChildren(); }

    public String getId() { }

    ...
}