Question

Hi I have a class Property and 2 subclasses Shop and Apartment.

In another class I have an arraylist of properties with a mixture of shops and apartments. I have the code:

for(Property prop: properties){
  if(prop.getClass().equals(Shop.class))
       prop.setShopDetails(detail);
  else
       prop.setAppDetails(detail)
}

How can I access the method setShopDetails() inside the shop class?

Answer 1

You need to cast prop to a Shop:

for(Property prop: properties){
  if(prop.getClass().equals(Shop.class))
       ((Shop) prop).setShopDetails(detail);
  else
       ((Apartment) prop).setAppDetails(detail)
  }
}

A better approach, however, would be to define an abstract method setDetails in the Property class and implement it differently in each subclass. You might also want to use prop instanceof Shop instead of prop.getClass().equals(Shop.class).