Overloaded method selection based on the parameter's real type

Question

I\'m experimenting with this code:

interface Callee {
    public void foo(Object o);
    public void foo(String s);
    public void foo(Integer i);
}

class          


        

Answer 1

I had a similar issue with calling the right constructor of a class called "Parameter" that could take several basic Java types such as String, Integer, Boolean, Long, etc. Given an array of Objects, I want to convert them into an array of my Parameter objects by calling the most-specific constructor for each Object in the input array. I also wanted to define the constructor Parameter(Object o) that would throw an IllegalArgumentException. I of course found this method being invoked for every Object in my array.

The solution I used was to look up the constructor via reflection...

public Parameter[] convertObjectsToParameters(Object[] objArray) {
    Parameter[] paramArray = new Parameter[objArray.length];
    int i = 0;
    for (Object obj : objArray) {
        try {
            Constructor cons = Parameter.class.getConstructor(obj.getClass());
            paramArray[i++] = cons.newInstance(obj);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("This method can't handle objects of type: " + obj.getClass(), e);
        }
    }
    return paramArray;
}

No ugly instanceof, switch statements, or visitor pattern required! :)