Question

I have an abstract class called Policy, and two subclasses DepreciablePolicy and ExpirablePolicy
I have an array of Policy, policies[]

I want to check what subclass my object is in (if it’s a Policy, DepreciablePolicy or ExpirablePolicy)

I did this by using this if statement.

if (this.policies[polNum] instanceof DepreciablePolicy){

For each type of subclass, there is a different method I have to run.
Only problem is that I’m only able to use the Policy methods, but not the subclass methods or constructors.
Is there a way I can do this?

Answer 1

This is inheritance done the wrong way. The whole point of polymorphism is that your code doesn’t care which subclass an object is. Anything you need to do should be expressed through the Policy, which should really be an interface. Your code should interact with a Policy based on that interface, and the subclasses choose how to react.

That being said, you’re probably looking for simple down-casting:

DepreciablePolicy d = (DepreciablePolicy) policy;

This is nothing better than a poor bandage on a bad design, though.