What is the 'instanceof' operator used for in Java?

Question

What is the instanceof operator used for? I\'ve seen stuff like

if (source instanceof Button) {
    //...
} else {
    //...
}

Answer 1

Very simple code example:

If (object1 instanceof Class1) {
   // do something
} else if (object1 instanceof Class2) {
   // do something different
}

Be careful here. In the example above, if Class1 is Object, the first comparison will always be true. So, just like with exceptions, hierarchical order matters!