Question

Using Java, I have a method which I’m calling with method.invoke that returns a string.
Method.invoke returns an object though which can’t be cast to String.
How am I supposed to use the Object as a string??

In the docs on reflection it shows the following:

Object o = m.invoke(t, new Locale(args[1], args[2], args[3]));
out.format("%s() returned %b%n", mname, (Boolean) o);

But my code does this and I get an exception: java.lang.Class cannot be cast to java.lang.String

This is an abstract class – there will then be several implementations of beans.

            Method[] methods = this.getClass().getMethods();
    for (Method method : methods) {
        if (isMethodGetter(method)) {
            
            try {

                Object message = method.invoke(this); // expect a string    
                       Object message = method.invoke(this); // expect a string
                
                if (message == null) {
                    // no messeage
                } else {
                    logger.debug("Calling listAnswers: got an answer: "
                            + message);

                    // create an answer object from the reflected
                    Answer answer = new Answer();
                    answer.setText((String)message);//cast as string
                    answerList.add(answer);
        }

edit: as per below answers I had a problem with the validation.

Answer 1

It’s simple: you didn’t get an instance of java.lang.String, but of java.lang.Class. Your clarification in the comment makes it all crystal-clear: the method java.lang.Object.getClass passes your isMethodGetter test, but it’s not want you wanted. Just enhance that checking code to not let the exact name getClass pass.