Question

Say I have a method declaration like:

private void someMethod(final String someKey, final Object dataType){
  // Some code
}

I want to call it like:

someMethod("SomeKey", String);
someMethod("SomeKey", Date);

I can it do it in different ways like declaring an int with different values representing the type, an enum, or the like.

But can I just pass the type itself?

EDIT:

To elaborate, I can do like:

someMethod("SomeKey", 1); // 1 = String
someMethod("SomeKey", 2); // 2 = Date

This doesn’t look good.

Answer 1

If you’re looking to pass the type of object as a parameter, you can do it by passing a java.lang.Class

i.e.

public void someMethod( String someKey, Class clazz ) {
    ... whatever
}

Is that what you’re looking for?

edit: incorporating Mark’s comment.

You can call this like

someMethod( "keyA", Date.class );
someMethod( "keyB", String.class );

etc.