Question

I need to write a function to return true if the incoming java Class is an implementation of the interface List. Does anybody know how to do this in java?

something like:

public boolean canConvert(Class c) {

  //return true is c is an implementation of the interface List

}

Thanks

Answer 1

There are two distinct scenarios:

• you want to check if a given class is a subclass/implementor of List. Judging from your method signature (Class c), this is what you want. In that case use

  List.class.isAssignableFrom(c)
  

• you want to see if a given object is an instance of a class that us a subclass/implementor of List. In that case use obj instanceof List, as Bala R suggested.