Question

I am new to java. There is a method which return a value of type xxx.

   public Cost getTotalCost() {
    return getCost();
}

I want to convert the getCost() to type string. How do I do it?

Answer 1

The most universal way is:

 String.valueOf(getCost());

This will handle nulls, or invoke the .toString() method of the object.

It would be best to implement the .toString() method for your Cost class.

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Note that it is considered poor practice to programmatically rely on the toString() method – it should be for human eyes only and not be locked into a specific implementation.